The jump is the biggest one-year increase in history, and it should make for an even more active free agent market than initially expected.
With just under three weeks to go until the 2024 league year officially begins on March 13th, the National Football League has finally announced its salary cap number for the upcoming season. And for both teams and players, the number is a welcome sight — a huge jump over last year’s number of $224.8 million.
In 2024, the base cap number will be a whopping $255.4 million per team, an increase of about $30 million above last year’s number. This increase is significantly more than previously expected, with most early projections putting the 2024 cap at about $245 million instead.
This year’s increase is the biggest single-year salary cap jump in league history, and it’s not particularly close, with the previous high coming in 2022 when the number went up by about $25 million from $182.5M to $208.2M. That bump came after the 2021 cap actually decreased due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the NFL’s decision to defer player payments as a result of the pandemic.
That deferral is a big reason for this year’s increase, however. According to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport, the 2024 jump is reflective of the league repaying the rest of that deferral to the players, as well as being due to major increases in media revenue for the NFL as the result of its new television contracts.
Every NFL team will benefit from this major increase on the cap, and the Green Bay Packers are no different. But it is a particularly important number for the Packers, as they are now projected to be under the cap heading into the new league year. They would have been a few million over the previous estimate of $245 million, but this number ensures that they can be compliant with the cap even if they do not make any moves before March 13th:
Without adjusting for the estimated increases for ERFAs, draft picks, or their proven performance escalators.
I now have the Packers at $2.8M under the cap today, while effectively being $15.5 over the cap for the start of the season.
— Ken Ingalls – Packers Cap (@KenIngalls) February 23, 2024
Of course, there are several possible ways that the Packers could free up cap space to give themselves some more breathing room and offer the flexibility to be bigger players in the free agent market. The biggest question revolves around the future of David Bakhtiari, as the team could open up $20 million in cap space by moving on from him. There are also potential cap savings to be had if the Packers release De’Vondre Campbell and if the renegotiate new contracts with the likes of Kenny Clark and Aaron Jones, and there are potential bonus restructures for Rashan Gary and Jaire Alexander as well.
For now, the new cap number lessens the urgency a bit on some of those potential moves. But with the number now locked in, the Packers (and every other NFL team) are finding themselves with a little bit more financial flexibility than initially thought.
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