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With two marquee deals having already taken place and a third likely to be finalized soon, it’s time to look at where the salary cap is for all 32 NFL teams leading up to the trade deadline.
The biggest trade thus far saw Davante Adams get sent to the New York Jets from the Las Vegas Raiders. That was followed by Amari Cooper being dealt from the Cleveland Browns to the Buffalo Bills.
Per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, the Kansas City Chiefs are acquiring DeAndre Hopkins from the Tennessee Titans in exchange for a conditional fifth-round pick in the 2025 NFL draft.
Here is where each team stands against the cap at this point in the season, ordered from most to least cap space:
- San Francisco 49ers: $55.2 million
- Cleveland Browns: $48.2 million
- Las Vegas Raiders: $39.4 million
- New England Patriots: $38.6 million
- Detroit Lions: $36.5 million
- Washington Commanders: $26.7 million
- Arizona Cardinals: $26 million
- Dallas Cowboys: $22.7 million
- Green Bay Packers: $16 million
- New York Jets: $15.7 million
- Jacksonville Jaguars: $15.3 million
- Tennessee Titans: $14.9 million
- Philadelphia Eagles: $14.9 million
- Indianapolis Colts: $14 million
- Minnesota Vikings: $14 million
- Seattle Seahawks: $12.9 million
- Pittsburgh Steelers: $12.6 million
- Los Angeles Chargers: $11.9 million
- Cincinnati Bengals: $10.5 million
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers: $9.1 million
- Carolina Panthers: $8.9 million
- Miami Dolphins: $8.6 million
- Houston Texans: $8.3 million
- Denver Broncos: $7.9 million
- Chicago Bears: $7.7 million
- New York Giants: $7.1 million
- Baltimore Ravens: $5 million
- Atlanta Falcons: $4.7 million
- New Orleans Saints: $4.3 million
- Kansas City Chiefs: $3.8 million
- Buffalo Bills: $3.5 million
- Los Angeles Rams: $2.0 million
Cap figures via Roster Management System (h/t ESPN.com)
One thing that has been notable about the early wide receiver trades is how teams have had to get creative with finances to make the deals work for them.
Rapoport noted the Titans will pay $2.5 million of Hopkins’ remaining salary as part of the deal with the Chiefs. This makes sense when you see the Chiefs rank 30th in cap space and Hopkins has a $3.2 million cap hit.
After Cooper restructured his contract with the Browns during the offseason, the Bills only took on an $806,667 cap hit by adding him for the remainder of the season.
The Browns will feel the sting of Cooper’s absence on their books next season because of his dead cap charge of more than $22 million. This is where their contract restructuring prior to the start of the 2024 campaign is going to benefit them.
In addition to Cooper’s restructure, the Browns also reworked Deshaun Watson’s deal in August. These moves are what allowed them to have the second-most cap space in the league, which they will use to rollover next year and ease the burden on their 2025 cap.
The Browns also stand to get additional cap relief from Watson’s season-ending Achilles injury because they do have at least a portion of his remaining 2024 salary insured.
“The cap credit [in 2025] will be the reflection of the payout,” an anonymous source told Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson. “Or whatever the Browns reveal — if they say anything at all. I doubt they will make that public. Most teams don’t like to talk about insurance policies.”
ESPN’s Kalyn Kahler noted in September that insurance policies purchased by teams for players with large contracts that eat up a significant portion of the cap have created a loophole for clubs.
Teams will recover a portion of the cap space for the following year if the player misses “significant time” due to injury or illness.
Another team that has dealt with a litany of issues also has the most cap space available right now. The San Francisco 49ers have yet to get a snap with Christian McCaffrey on the field, and they will be without Brandon Aiyuk for the rest of the season due to a torn ACL and MCL suffered in Sunday’s loss to the Chiefs.
Even though conventional wisdom would suggest the 49ers use some of their cap to replace Aiyuk with a marquee receiver, they are likely looking to hold onto as much of that space as possible for next year when they are expected to sign Brock Purdy to a lucrative extension.
The Niners already have six players set to count at least $20 million against the cap in 2025 before factoring in a potential Purdy extension.
Perhaps the most intriguing team leading up to the trade deadline are the Washington Commanders. They have the sixth-most cap space available with a rookie quarterback playing at an extremely high level, so they don’t have to worry about him eating up a significant portion of the cap for several years.
Washington could use help on both sides of the ball. The team has an extra third-round draft pick in 2025 to use in a potential deal that it got from the Philadelphia Eagles as part of the Jahan Dotson trade.
Given the amount of parity around the NFL this season, it will be interesting to see how many teams decide to sell ahead of the Nov. 5 deadline. There have already been three marquee deals involving wide receivers, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if a lot more activity happens over the next 12 days.
The record for most deals on deadline day was 10 done two years ago.
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