New NFL salary cap means new Houston Texans

Texans Cap talks Texans cap

Last week, the NFL announced a sizable increase for the 2024 salary cap, the money all teams get to spend on players in the upcoming season. The Houston Texans already had one of the biggest free cap space numbers, and it just got bigger.

@TexansCap, one of, if not THE, media authorities on all things Houston Texans salary cap space, dropped his latest number crunching over the weekend. While he does admit there are a few pieces missing from the puzzle, this does provide a fairly set look at what the Texans have to work with for 2024.

Speaking of, Texans Cap has moved to a new home, Cap & Trade that offers some great football insights, if you’re into such things.

Cap&Trade.com

The $255.4 million number exceeded expectations across the league including myself. For the past two months, offline, I’ve been told to expect a league cap number in the $242.5 to $245.5 million range.

Those numbers made sense to me as that would have represented the usual 7-8% increase. The league (usually) prefers to avoid single-year ballooning of the salary cap, preferring to go with a consistent gradual rise.

Teams and the Players’ Association were still in the process of paying back the front cap money used to cover the 2021 league year. Based on Rapoport’s post, those paybacks have already been completed.

The 13.61% increase represents the fourth largest increase, by percentage, dating back to 1994. The $30.6 million raw number raise is the largest increase over the same period.

While the immediate reaction to this is something like “Great! Now Nick Caserio can go on a mad shopping spree and sign all.the.free.agents!”

But, this is a rising tide raises all boats scenario.

Want Saquon Barkley to join the Battle Red? His price tag just went up.

Interested in Chris Jones? Prepare to pay more.

Cap&Trade.com

Another result of the increased salary cap is the coinciding raise for new contracts. The floor for some veteran contracts will increase from this announcement. The rookie wage scale could see a large jump for 2024 compared to the near-zero percentage increase seen in 2023.

So, it may be much ado about nothing. If Houston’s anticipated cap space rose by, say, 10%, but the price tag on veteran free agents and the draft pool also goes up 10%, then it’s sort of a wash.

It might, however, mean Houston Texans’ general manager Nick Caserio has an easier time retaining the teams own free agents.

Cap&Trade.com

A team may not need to complete a basic restructure with a specific player, or a veteran salary cap-related release may not be needed.

Regardless of the mathematical intricacies of the salary cap and the increase thereto, the Texans are still sitting pretty with cap space, thanks in large part to Caserio’s skillful navigation of the troubled contract waters he inherited from former football czar Bill O’Brien.

2024 is the season we really get to see what a phenomenal coach in Demeco Ryans and highly skilled general manager in Caserio can actually do for the Houston Texans.

I, for one, am pretty excited about that.