The NFL salary cap and team’s salary cap space is a much-debated area because it is one of those things in life that is not really an issue until it is. For the most part, teams are excellent at navigating the salary cap, which can make it seem irrelevant at times. However, we have seen teams struggle to remain competitive when the salary cap prevents them from being able to retain players or sign marquee free agents.
Teams like the New Orleans Saints and Cleveland Browns have navigated cap concerns over recent years but find themselves heading into 2025 in a position where they will struggle to compete to re-sign multiple top-tier players or add multiple top-tier free agents.
All salary cap data for the 32 teams in the table above is courtesy of Over the Cap. If you want to simulate how your favorite team should handle their cap space, head over to PFSN’s NFL Offseason Manager.
What Is the NFL Salary Cap?
The NFL salary is complicated in many ways, but the basic premise of it is simple. Each team has a budget for each season, and they cannot go over that budget. If they do, the contract that sent them over is canceled, and they are penalized in some way. Punishments would usually be a monetary fine or a loss of draft picks on top of canceling the contract.
In some aspects, it is not very different than when you were a child with an allowance. Exceed that allowance and your parents likely told you to put one thing back. The main difference is that they probably didn’t also then punish you by taking away something else as well.
The NFL salary cap is set based on revenue sharing between the NFL and the NFL Players Association and changes each year. The league sets a base value for the cap each season, and teams can roll over money from previous seasons to boost that value.
How Does the NFL Salary Cap Work?
As we discussed above, the league sets a base salary cap for all teams. In 2024, that was $255.4 million, and that was the minimum cap for all 32 teams. Each team then adds on any rolled-over money from the previous season. In essence, this is money that they did not spend against the previous cap. Some further adjustments based on contractual elements are then made to achieve a final number for each team.
The salary cap for players consists of salaries and bonuses. Only the top 51 players count toward the cap during the offseason, but when the season starts, all 53 players on the active roster count toward it. Additionally, any player placed on the injured reserve or the practice squad counts against a team salary cap.
Signing and option bonuses are paid in a lump sum, but their impact on the salary cap can be spread up to four years. So a player receiving a $25 million signing bonus gets all that money immediately, but only $5 million a year would count towards the cap in each year of a five-year contract.
Salary is paid weekly, and all of a player’s salary is counted on their cap. Players earn a minimum salary based on the number of seasons they have “accrued” in their career, and, in theory, there is no maximum salary a player can be paid.
Per-game bonuses and incentives also count against the salary cap. How much they count against the cap in a single year is dependent on various factors. Any incentives considered “likely to be earned” count against the cap in that year, and if the player does not reach the threshold, the team pays back the incentives in the form of cap credits as part of cap adjustments.
Any incentives considered “not likely to be earned” do not count against the cap in that year. If the player reaches the threshold, they count against the team's salary cap the following year in the form of cap adjustments.
What is Active Cap and Dead Money
Active cap spending is anything a team is spending on a player’s current contract. In contrast, dead money is anything a team still owes on a canceled or voided contract.
For example, a player paid a $25 million signing bonus on a five-year deal and earning a $5 million salary in that season would have an active cap number of $10 million in that year. However, if the team were to cut that player after that first year, the $20 million that had not counted against the cap would be considered dead money in Year 2.
Which Teams Have the Most Salary Cap Space?
The information in this section is correct as of Feb. 26, 2025
With a little over a week before free agency begins, the New England Patriots have the most salary cap space at over $125 million. They are the only team currently over $100 million in cap space, thanks in large part to a league-low active cap spending of just under $180 million. They also have just over $7 million in dead money, compared to nearly $35 million in cap rollover from last season.
The Patriots are one of five teams with more than $75 million in cap space as things stand ahead of the franchise tag deadline. The Las Vegas Raiders, Washington Commanders, Chicago Bears, and Arizona Cardinals are the other four teams in that group.
Which Teams Have the Least Salary Cap Space?
The information in this section is correct as of Feb. 26, 2025
Five teams have negative cap space for 2025 as things stand. They are the Atlanta Falcons, Seattle Seahawks, Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, and New Orleans Saints. None of those teams will likely be over the cap by the time the new league year starts, and some might even have considerable amounts of cap space to work with.
That is unlikely to be the case for the Saints, who are nearly $50 million over the salary cap. After multiple years of cap issues, the Saints are running out of options in terms of opening up cap space. There is a path for them to be cap-compliant by the start of the new league year, but they will not have much opportunity to improve their roster in free agency.