What does the NFL's massive salary cap jump mean for the Chiefs?
Looking at a few of the natural consequences of the salary cap growing far beyond projections.
So on a quiet Friday the NFL dropped some massive news regarding the salary cap.
Why is this a big deal? Well, as discussed in Part 1 of the “If I Were Brett Veach” series, the previous projection for the salary cap (and one that Over the Cap’s calculator was working off) was around $243.5 million. Instead it has taken a jump significantly higher than even the most optimistic projections were previously.
So the question that springs to mind is… how does this affect the Chiefs? The immediate reaction for most (myself included) was to celebrate, but there are obvious questions about how this will actually, practically affect Kansas City’s cap situation and in retaining in-house free agents (let alone bringing in some new guys to help attempt a three-peat). And some of those questions (rightfully) are skeptical of whether this is really that big a deal for Brett Veach and company.
After all, every single team’s salary cap will increase by the same dollar amount, so does it really matter since all boats are rising? And won’t players just ask for contracts that are higher than what they would have previously asked for, commensurate with the jump? And given those things, isn’t this just much ado about nothing?
Sort of, but not exactly. While those two factors certainly matter, they don’t mean that the cap taking an unexpectedly large jump this year (nearly $30 million, unheard of previously) has no effect whatsoever on the Chiefs’ specific situation. Let’s talk about how cap flexibility a sliding scale issue (in a way that helps the Chiefs), how NFL contracts and negotiations work in practice, and how this cap rise benefits the Chiefs (and other contending teams closer to the cap with in-house free agents to retain) a little more so than others.