There was good news and bad news for everybody when the NFL Players Association released their 2015 salary cap report. The good news for most teams is that they expect the cap to go up $10 million each year over the next two seasons. The bad news for some teams is that they haven’t spent enough money to reach the minimum cap number allowed under the 2011 collective bargaining agreement.
The bad news for the entire NFL? Four of those under-spending teams made the playoffs last season and one won the Super Bowl.
Next year, if the NFLPA is correct and, let’s face it, there are a lot of head injuries there so you’ll probably want to recheck that math, next year’s cap will be around $143 million. According to the 2011 deal, teams have to spend at least 89 percent of the cap over a four-year period. All the numbers will be finalized at 4 p.m. EST on March 10 with the beginning of the new league year.
Your worst salary cap performer will come as no surprise, it’s the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders have spent just 80.2 percent. The Raiders can’t just increase their spending by nine percent this year, it’s got to be 89 percent over all four years, meaning they have to make up what they didn’t spend over the past two seasons in 2015 and 2016. And if they don’t? They have to pay the money to the NFLPA. It’s quite a racket they’ve got there.
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For Raiders fans, this is great news. The team has to spend money, so there’s no trade off the table and no free agent too expensive to add to the team. Will the Raiders actually do enough to become winners? There’s no excuse not to, but since it’s the Raiders it’s anybody’s guess.
The Carolina Panthers were second-worst, hitting just 80.8 percent of the cap. The New York Jets were third with 81.16 percent and the Jacksonville Jaguars are fourth with 82.2 percent. There’s no excuse but incompetent mismanagement for all of these teams to field a superior product in 2015.
What’s terrible is that the Dallas Cowboys (82.2) and New England Patriots (82.7) both have to increase their spending significantly as well and those two teams are prime destinations for free agents. Both teams are early favorites to make it to Super Bowl 50, with the Patriots currently sitting at 13/2. The Cowboys are 15/1 and adding talented free agents will certainly not make those numbers go down. To contrast that, the Jacksonville Jaguars, who spent nearly the same amount as the Cowboys and Patriots over the last two seasons are 300/1 to make the Super Bowl.
The New Orleans Saints, the Washington Redskins, the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Steelers also need to increase their spending, but not to the degree of the other team. With the open cap space and need to make it rain, it makes the Steelers’ decision to let outside linebacker Jason Worilds walk even more perplexing.
The list of the top spending team is heartbreaking considering a couple of the teams that are on it, the Atlanta Falcons (109.1 percent) and the Chicago Bears (106 percent). The Falcons and Bears have already spent way more than they had to and even have to shed players to stay under the cap and have nothing to show for it over the last two seasons but losses and fired coaches.
The Green Bay Packers (116 percent) , the Seattle Seahawks (107.4 percent) and the Denver Broncos (105.4 percent) are all in the red and have to make some tough decisions over the next couple of seasons. The Packers have a Super Bowl window that’s tightening every year, the Broncos’ window might have already closed and the Seahawks will be continually raided by other teams for their free agents and have massive deals to work out with their star players to keep them.
League-wide the average spending is 95.87 percent of the cap, equaling over $7.85 billion in player salaries.
