DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum NFL salary cap projected at $301.2 million to $305.7 million per team for 2026 season

Since we have a draft forum but no FA signing period forum I thought I would post this. The salary has been raised every season for many years now with I think the exception of the Covid shut down year. Having said that, with every rise in the salary cap so does the rise in NFL players contracts coincide. The 2026 NFL free agent signing period officially begins at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, coinciding with the start of the new league year. A two-day legal tampering/negotiation window opens on Monday, March 9, 2026, at noon ET, allowing teams to contact agents and negotiate terms.

With the FA signing period looming I thought this would be a good topic for discussion.............

The NFL salary cap is continuing on its astronomical trajectory in 2026.

On Friday, the league informed clubs it is projecting a salary cap in the range of $301.2 million to $305.7 million for the upcoming 2026 season, NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero reported, per a source.

Such a number would represent an increase of more than $20 million from the 2025 mark of $279.2 million and reach nearly $100 million in additional space since the $208.2 million cap set for the 2022 season.

The projection follows the same pattern exhibited in recent increases. The cap jumped by $23.8 million from 2024 to 2025, creating excesses of space that exceeded $70 million for some teams and even cleared $100 million for the 2025 AFC champion New England Patriots.

As recent history has proven, it seems the booming business of the NFL will only continue to produce greater salary cap limits in future years. The projected number for 2026 is nearly double 2018's cap of $177 million, demonstrating incredible growth in both popularity and prosperity for the league.

https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-salary...o-305-7-million-per-team-for-2026-season

That's very good news; especially for us!!

I'm not sure what this means. Can we still kick cans??

I really don't know. I know at some point the bills comes due. I know the money put off by kicking the can down the road has added up to a huge amount and if you continue that amount will only get larger. All it really means as that player salaries will increase along with the salary cap and those with the least amount of salary cap going into this year really wont gain much ground with an increase in the salary cap since the cost of contracts will rise along with it.

You'll have to ask someone with a lot more knowledge about the salary cap than I have to get a full explanation to your question. That's why I opened it up for discussion. Hopefully this will help answer both of our questions about the salary cap to at least some degree.

lol. Perplexity actually just said he "kicks the can" when I asked for an explanation af his Cap Wizardry...


how is andrew berry of the browns so good at manipulating the salary cap?

Andrew Berry is widely regarded as one of the sharpest cap‑managers in the NFL because he aggressively uses the NFL’s salary‑cap rules—especially “void years,” restructures, and cash‑over‑cap structures—to keep the Browns flexible in the short term, even if it makes the long‑term picture look messy.
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Why people think he’s so good

Berry isn’t “cheating” the cap; he’s optimizing it within the CBA’s scripted loopholes. His background in economics and computer science (Harvard degrees) plus a heavy reliance on analytics lets him plan multi‑year cap curves, rollover years, and guaranteed‑cash timing in a way most GMs don’t. The result is that Cleveland can spend more actual cash than the cap number suggests while still having room to maneuver in free agency.

How he manipulates the cap

1. Void years and “kicking the can”
Berry regularly loads contracts with “void years” at the end so money that would hit the cap in the next year gets pushed off the books. Those void years eventually create dead‑cap charges, but the league’s cap keeps rising, so a dollar owed in 2030 is cheaper in relative cap terms than one owed in 2025.
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2. Cash‑over‑cap / proration tricks
He’ll front‑load deals with big signing bonuses and then prorate them over many years, so the early cap hits are low but the team pays a lot in real cash. That lets the Browns go after high‑end free agents without the cap sheet looking like they can’t afford them, while the true cost is just delayed.
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3. Rollovers, restructures, and June 1 cuts
Berry aggressively uses:

Carryover cap space (money saved from one year applied to the next).
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Contract restructures (converting base salaries into bonuses or creating new guarantees) to lower immediate cap hits.

Post‑June 1 releases (trading players or cutting them after June 1) so dead‑cap hits are spread across two years.

Taken together, this is why Berry can look like he’s “always” tight on cap space on paper but still sign or extend players others assume he can’t afford.

The downside fans point to

The flip side is that this strategy leaves the Browns vulnerable if the cap growth slows or if the “win‑now” window flops. Critics argue that after betting big on Deshaun Watson and the 2024–2025 window, the team is now stuck with heavy commitments and little room to quickly rebuild without pain at the back end of contracts. So people say he’s “good at manipulating the cap” but debate whether that’s always been aligned with long‑term team building.