What is our salary cap situation? It seems like we have so many young studs that are gonna need to get paid in the next 2 years. Can we afford all of this?
What is our salary cap situation? It seems like we have so many young studs that are gonna need to get paid in the next 2 years. Can we afford all of this?
Yes. Pretty easily. Right now we have roughly 52M cap space for 2024 and I think 160M for 2025.
Extending Hunter or Cousins would only increase their 2024 cap by maybe 10M ish each, depending on how their deals are structured. So that would leave roughly 30M before the draft class, so probably 22M for free agents. CD, JJ, and O’Neill are already on the books for 2024. Keep in mind we could pretty easily free up an extra 10-20M if we made some cuts. To put that in perspective I think we spent like 25M total this past offseason for free agents.
Deals are usually structured to go up over time, so even if JJ gets a mega extension, his 2025 cap hit probably won’t be over 25M. CD would be around 20M on his 5th year option. So for easy math, add in 25M for Hunter, and another 35M for Cousins, and you’re left with 55M in cap space for 2025. Plus you could free up another 18-22M if we cut/retire Smith and another 14M for O’Neill. Other guys like Ham, Oliver, Booth, Bradbury could all save a few million each if cut as well. Now that number obviously goes down with draft classes and free agents, but we absolutely can afford everyone if we want to.