I’m starting to get my offseason legs under me after the Eagles were eliminated. It’s a long road to the 2026 regular season, but we’ll get there. No better place to start than assessing what the Eagles have to work with. This is going to be a full-nerd, salary cap heavy kind of post. You’ve been warned.
The Numbers
The NFL does not set the official cap until the new league year begins, but the current projection is around $304.3m. Of course, this is not what teams will be working with because what ever money teams didn’t use the previous year rolls over to this one. This means the Eagles will be around $314.5m. Current 2026 liabilities are already at $303m, but there are various ways to get this number down and massage the cap.
As of right now, the 2027 cap is expected to increase. A mid-line increase of 9% would put the number over $330m. Assuming Michael Carter isn’t brought back and before any other extensions, the Eagles will have around $100m to spend. However, there is a lot of work to do before then.
Big Cap Numbers
The following are the biggest cap hits on the team that have very little (if any) room for reduction. They are all under contract and save for an unlikely cut, trade, or extension are here at this price for next year:
- Jalen Hurts – $32m
- AJ Brown – $23.5m
- Lane Johnson – $20m
- Jordan Mailata – $16m
- DeVonta Smith – $11m
- Landon Dickerson – $10m
- Saquon Barkley – $10m
Easy Cuts
- Michael Carter II – $10m cap hit with a $9.7m non-guaranteed salary. I’m not saying he won’t be back, but he definitely will not be back anywhere close to this price. Cap Savings: $8.7m.
- Sydney Brown, Byron Young, Kelee Ringo, and Tyler Steen – All could provide some cap relief, but Steen would take around $3.5m off the books. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is traded assuming the Eagles draft an offensive lineman early.
Free Agents
- Dallas Goedert – Goedert is the single most interesting subplot this offseason. He has a $20m dead cap hit to not play in 2026 which…YIKES. This makes a return more likely than most on this list. A post-June 1 cut (which would require some assistance from Goedert) can finagle this down to $7.5m this season, but the other $12.5m would be due next season.
- Reed Blankenship and Braden Mann1 – Each will be a free agent, but with small dead cap hits already figured into the above
- Nakobe Dean and Jaelan Phillips – Coming off rookie scale contracts, Dean and Phillips are pure free agents with no dead cap hit.
Extension Candidates
- Jordan Davis – Davis had a breakout year and finally fulfilled his draft pedigree. He is also in the 5th year of his contract which means he’s expensive at $13m. The Eagles could look to either extend him or trade him to lower that amount.
- Jalen Carter – Before the season, it looked like a foregone conclusion that Carter would be the next highest paid non-QB, but he didn’t have the level up year we were all expecting. As a 4th year player though, he is eligible for an extension and the Eagles are usually very quick to extend elite talent. The cap hit is currently $7m, but that could move up a bit depending on a signing bonus.
- Nolan Smith – Smith also didn’t have the upward movement many were predicting after his playoff run last year. Smith is good, but not great. A possible Brian Burns level deal is probably not on the table right now. His cap hit is around $4m and could also increase slightly with an extension.
Dead Cap – The Sins of the Past
- Bryce Huff – $16.5m
- Darius Slay – $13.25m
- James Bradberry – $7.75m
- Brandon Graham – $4.4m
- Za’Darius Smith – $1.8m
- Total Without Void Contracts – $40m
- Total With Voids and No Returns or Cap Shenanigans – $69m
Recap
Based on the above, the Eagles are looking at around $20m in likely cap space. That’s not much. The Dallas Goedert situation could possibly move that needle as high as $32m (I’ll get to how later). From there, an extension for Jordan Davis could result in another $5m. Because of these minimal funds and possible extensions on the roster, do not expect the Eagles to be too active in free agency, other than their guys. We’ll get to that later in the week.
Salary cap and individual contract numbers courtesy of Spotrac and Overthecap
- There are others like BG and Azeez Ojulari, but they are so unlikely to return that I am just moving on ↩︎
Philly Front Office 
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