With the exception of the Covid 2020 season, the NFL salary cap has gone up every single one of the last 30 years. The only thing you can count on more in that time frame is the Cowboys not winning the Super Bowl. In most cases, the cap has gone up 5-10% year over year, but over the last 3 it’s been up about 10%. This might sound obvious, but continuous percentage increases like this can create some big numbers. Let’s take a visual look for the math-inclined crowd:
| Year | Cap Total | $ Increase | % Increase |
| 1995 | $37.1m | ||
| 2005 | $85.5m | $48.4m (10y) | 130.46% (10y) |
| 2015 | $143.3m | $57.8m (10y) | 67.6% (10y) |
| 20201 | $198.2m | $10m | 5.31% |
| 2022 | $208.2m | $10m | 5.05% |
| 2023 | $224.8m | $16.6m | 7.97% |
| 2024 | $255.4m | $30.6m | 13.61% |
| 2025 | $279.2m | $23.8m | 9.32% |
That’s a $71m increase in 4 years and almost double in 10 years. The crazy part? It’s going to continue.
Over the last few years, the NFL has secured media rights deals totaling $110b running through 2033. That’s an average of $11b per year, but the year over year numbers escalate over time. That’s only part of the league revenue though. Through ticket sales, merchandising, and other ventures the NFL made $23b last year. That was up from $20b the year before and $18b the year before that. Between the 32 teams, that’s almost $719m per team per year. The players get 48% of that revenue by way of the salary cap and benefits.
Where is this going? Well, straight up. Considering the media rights deals are locked in and escalate over time plus people aren’t just going to stop attending, watching, and wagering on football games, we can assume pretty steady revenue for the next few years. Here is how that could conservatively affect the salary cap through the length of the current media rights agreements:
| Year | Est. Cap Total | $ Increase | % Increase |
| 2026 | $304.3m | $25.1m | 9%2 |
| 2027 | $331.7m | $27.4m | 9% |
| 2028 | $361.6m | $29.9m | 9% |
| 2029 | $394.1m | $32.5m | 9% |
| 2030 | $429.6m | $35.5m | 9% |
| 2031 | $468.2m | $38.6m | 9% |
| 2032 | $510.4m | $42.2m | 9% |
| 2033 | $556.3 | $45.9m | 9% |
The 10-year period of 2024-2033 could see a $300m increase in salary cap, more than doubling what we saw just 2 years ago. If you thought contracts are high now, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Dak Prescott has the current lead in highest average annual contract value (“AAV”) at $60m. 10 years ago, it was Aaron Rodgers at $22m. There are QBs in high school right now who won’t go to college for another two or three years. Three years later, they’ll get drafted into the NFL. Three more years of playing great and they’ll be offered a contract extension. One of them very likely will become the highest paid player in football making…over $120m per year. Crazy.
Let’s tie the Eagles and Howie Roseman into this real quick. I had someone online recently claim the Eagles are going to be in cap hell soon. That’s why I wrote this, it’s simply not true. Howie pushes money paid now down the line for salary cap accounting purposes through options and signing bonuses. The short reason is: money now is worth more than money later.
Accounting for money on future salary cap ledgers is better than an interest free loan to yourself. This is over simplified, but let’s say a player signs a big ol’ contract for 5/$150m. If it’s a standard contract at $30m per year, that’s just under 11% of the cap this year and 9.8% next year. That drops to under 8% in year 5. However, let’s say that contract came with a $50m signing bonus, option years, and 4 void years. The first year it only costs $14.8m, 5% of the cap, then $18.6m in year 2, 6.1%. By year 5, that’s up to the same $30m. Of course, there is also 38m in dead money lying around. That can be split as $15.2m in year 6 and $22.8m in year 7. Guess how much they account for? 3.5% and 4.8% of the cap in those seasons. That’s nothing! Not only did it more than account for itself the first 2 years, but you made money in years 3 and 4 and you also had $38m to spend on your team in those years. This was just the simplified version too. There are ways to save even more money.
Eagles fans, trust me on this. No matter what you hear about the salary cap, Howie Roseman knows what he is doing way more than anyone else.
Historic salary cap info courtesy of Spotrac.com. Projections my own.
Philly Front Office 
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