NFL Salary Cap Sees Second Significant Spike in As Many Years

The NFL salary cap will get a significant bump for the second straight year. 

The league informed teams Wednesday that the per-team cap would be between $277.5 million and $281.5 million following negotiations between the NFL and its players’ association, according to ESPN. 

In 2024, the cap saw its largest dollar increase in its history when it rose from $224.8 million to $255.4 million—a 13% increase. Regardless of the final figure, this year’s increase means the cap rose by at least $53 million in the past two seasons. The league’s 11-year, $111 billion media-rights deal, which was signed in 2021, is part of the reason for the recent spike. 

The continued rise of the salary cap should make it easier for teams to retain key players with more financial space to work with. For a team like the Bengals, which currently has two disgruntled receivers on its roster, the higher cap makes it easier to keep both players. 

The NFL recalculates the cap annually based on a formula that is collectively bargained and factors in league revenues. The figure isn’t finalized until the league and the NFLPA tweak the number. 

In 2024, the formula’s figure was $265.4 million, $10 million more than the final cap figure. The NFL told teams Wednesday the difference was because of a 2024 agreement between the two sides that divided the $10 million between the performance-based pay pool ($1 million)—which was paid out this past season—and a “smoothing adjustment” of $9 million, according to ESPN. 

The NFLPA agreed to the smoothing adjustment, ESPN reported, in order to avoid a disproportionate spike in the cap year over year, which would benefit players up for new contracts in 2024, but not 2025. 

The holdup this year, according to the NFL’s memo, is because the union is still deciding how it wants to recover the $9 million smoothing adjustment from last year’s cap discussions. The 2024 agreement allows the union to recoup as much as half the amount, or $4.5 million this year and the remaining amount in the 2026 season. The number the NFLPA lands on will be added to this year’s salary cap figure, hence the range the NFL gave teams Wednesday. 

The league told teams in its memo that it is expecting to conclude negotiations with the union next week, in time for the start of the new league year, which coincides with the start of free agency at 4 p.m. ET on March 12.