2026 Cap Space vs Salary Guarantees
This article was originally published on Over The Cap.
Though it is still relatively early in the 2025 NFL season it never hurts to look ahead especially if you are a fan of one of the teams in the NFL that has had a worse than expected start. Here is a look at where teams stand in terms of estimated cap room for next year (this includes estimated salary cap carryover and assumes each team will be at 51 players) and how much money the team already has fully guaranteed players on the roster.
The teams in the upper left quadrant are the teams that would look to be in the best shape for next season. These teams have an abundance of cap space already on the books for next year and they have the most flexibility with their roster since their guarantee commitments are relatively low. If you are a good team that is an exciting prospect to continue building and I would argue should put these teams in a position to acquire big salaries at the trade deadline this year if it maximizes their chances for 2025. For the bad teams like the Titans at least it is a shining light in what looks like a bad year.
The upper right quadrant are teams that should be in relatively good cap shape next season but they do already have some big commitments on the team. There are not many teams in this quadrant but most of these will be the teams that likely will consider restructures of their veteran contracts if they want to be more active in free agency next year. The exception are the Jets who have the best cap position in this tier but my feeling is that there will be many questions about why they rushed into some of their big money extensions if things continue to go this bad.
The lower left quadrant are the teams with low guarantees and low cap room. This is also a low volume sector and is basically all teams paying for past salary cap mistakes which have burdened the teams with big cap charges but few remaining guarantees. Many of these teams could be those that just slash the roster next year and deal with the dead money fall out for a season.
Finally we get the bottom right where we get teams that have big commitments to their roster and not a great cap situation next year. For teams like the Bills and Lions who are likely playoff teams they will simply double down on their deals with restructures. For teams like the Giants and Browns it is just a bad look. There is no reason for teams that didn’t looks that good to start with to have put themselves in these positions.
