2015 salary cap set at $143.28 million

Posted by Michael David Smith on March 2, 2015, 12:35 PM EST

The 2015 NFL salary cap has been set at $143.28 million.

That won’t come as a surprise to either owners or players, but it wasn’t official until today. The final cap number was set today in conjunction with the deadline for teams to make their decisions on franchise player designations.

That doesn’t mean every team will spend $143.28 million. In fact, according to the NFL Players Association, 31 teams are carrying over some unused cap space from last year. The Rams are the only team that is not carrying over any cap space. Teams also have dead money counting against their 2015 caps from prorated signing bonuses of players who are no longer on the roster, and teams can use accounting tricks to spend more than $143.28 million this year by pushing some of the money they pay players to future years’ caps.

But the cap has been set, and the cap number for every team will be $143.28 million.

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31 responses to “2015 salary cap set at $143.28 million”

  4. What does that mean, “most teams don’t know how to use the cap wisely”? If a team leaves itself $30 million in cap space for a given season, is it using the cap any worse or better than a team whose total cap is right at the max level?

    If team X has such a huge amount of room, then teams like Cleveland, Jacksonville, Oakland, and Tampa know how to use the cap. Teams who max out the cap level like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, New England, and Arizona wouldn’t know what they’re doing using such logic.

  6. If I would have negotiated the deal the cap # would be $250M and nobody would have to work until mid August
    — Sean Gilbert

  7. It’s a 10 million dollar increase from last year(So you don’t have to go look it up).

  9. It is official: NFL players are getting RICHER!

    So why does the media make them out to be paupers?

    NFL owners overhead keeps increasing, as does their liability (due to idiotic players and their union), yet the media IGNORES that.

    It’s hard to stay in business when your overhead and liability increase every year.

  10. For goodness’ sake.
    Lord, that’s a lot of money!
    Only in America…
    Rams not carrying cap space is weird, though.
    I wonder if this will attract more athletes to the sport?
    Obviously, it won’t hurt.

    Salary cap is tilted to the players, in my opinion.
    Unfortunately, there’s a union so nothing can be done.
    Can we forget about expansion, though?
    Know one thing, the NFL will continue to grow.
    Spare us the London thing too.
    !

  11. Yeah, a 55-man roster shouldn’t be problem given that a lot of guys on the roster are undrafted free agents making less an half a million

  12. Players are getting richer? From 2009-2015 the cap is even with inflation (128MM to 143MM). It was flat for a couple of years and to keep it that way De Smith borrowed money from the owners.

    Who knows how this number was achieved given the pension fund is short $1.4B.

    De Smith is a politician so probably shifting money from one year to the next.

  13. … and… cheap Cincinnati Bengals owner mike brown will not spend a dime on upgrading players, still make the playoffs, and lose in the early rounds due to being two or three upgrades short.

    SEE: Slow, non-shifty #4 caliber wr Mohamed Sanu masquerading as a #2 wr (10% drop rate)

  14. Doesn’t the CBA require teams to spend a minimum amount of the cap over the coming seasons? In other words, teams like the Jags won’t be allowed to carry over $60 mil every year.

  15. pats777, each team has to spend at least a minimum percentage of the cap on a four-year average. So, yeah, teams like the Jags and Raiders will have to ramp up spending in the next couple years. Read the first letter only of each line of my previous post.

  16. Teams that need to put fannies in the seats by creating star power are forever doomed to failure. GMs that need a big splash to save their jobs are forever doomed. Owners that live vicariously through their teams are forever doomed. There are reasons just a handful of teams stay on top and their are reasons the Jerry Jones/Daniel Snyders of the league can only win the off season.
    Simple rule: What would Belichick do?

  18. Reward winning!
    Tie the salary cap to wins from the previous year. No way Raiders should be rewarded for being tens of millions under the cap and sucking so badly. Fine them the difference!

  19. restorative, the salary cap is on a four-year average. Sure, the Raiders have a lot of room, but that’s only because they under-spent the first two years. Now they have to overspend a couple years. Go back to the 10th post on this thread by me and read only the first letter of every line, it spells out the problem here. Raiders are on the upswing, that’s the good news.

  20. What’s what are the team floors at this year? The Jaguars front office will look like a scene from Brewster’s Millions, buying and using rare stamps just to stay barely above it.

  21. dryzzt23 says:
    Mar 2, 2015 12:55 PM
    It is official: NFL players are getting RICHER!
    So why does the media make them out to be paupers?
    NFL owners overhead keeps increasing, as does their liability (due to idiotic players and their union), yet the media IGNORES that.
    It’s hard to stay in business when your overhead and liability increase every year.

    ____________________________________

    Hard to stay in business? Please, these teams are making a fortune, in fact the increase in the salary cap is done as a percentage of revenue so in other words, if the cap increased 10M it means that the owners made even more money.

    Meanwhile these NFL owners pit cities against cities so they don’t have to put down as much “risk” into their franchises all the while increasing the costs to fans.

    Tax payer money should NEVER go towards a football stadium.

  22. Hey MDS you didn’t mention the cap floor this coming season, ie the minimum the teams are required to spend on player salaries.

  23. What does that mean, “most teams don’t know how to use the cap wisely”?
    ———————————————————–

    Means just what I said. There are GM’s who don’t know how much money to allocate to certain positions. Most over allocate to the wrong positions of the team. Then, others commit too much money to the initial signing bonus so if they player is a bust, the dead cap hit is huge.

  24. sambaughslingers says:
    Mar 2, 2015 1:36 PM
    Hard to stay in business? Please, these teams are making a fortune, in fact the increase in the salary cap is done as a percentage of revenue so in other words, if the cap increased 10M it means that the owners made even more money.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Revenue is determined before expenses. Things like fuel costs, hotel costs, employee health care etc. are all increasing and only impact the owners’ portion of the revenue split. The owners are probably making more money than previous years but the percentage of increase for the players is higher.

  25. harrisonhits2 says: Mar 2, 2015 1:38 PM

    Hey MDS you didn’t mention the cap floor this coming season, ie the minimum the teams are required to spend on player salaries.
    ——————
    It’s 89% over a four year average, from 2013 to 2016. If a team fails to hit 89%, the difference has to be paid to the NFLPA.

  26. Now the Patriots can sign Revis, McCourty, Gostkowski, and Vereen and still have $ left over to pay for their 1st round draft pick and the one they’ll get from the Colts.

  27. So, what happens when the NFL doesn’t make as much as the previous year and projects a LOWER cap? Every year they’ve been increasing with higher and higher profits (must be nice to be a “non-profit” and pay no federal taxes). There has to be a ceiling at some point and what will be the impact on salaries/ contracts already signed if the salary cap is 10-15 million less?

  28. The “non-profit” aspect of the NFL has been misunderstood and twisted by the general public. There’s a difference between the league in general and individual teams. Forbes have written good pieces on this. Go back to the 10th post on this thread and read only the first letter of each line. I don’t think people should get into such a big uproar about taxes and the NFL.

  29. realdealsteel said:

    “There are GM’s who don’t know how much money to allocate to certain positions. Most over allocate to the wrong positions of the team. Then, others commit too much money to the initial signing bonus so if they player is a bust, the dead cap hit is huge.”

    ——————————————————————–

    That’s easy to say for any armchair GM like you and me. Let’s look at Cleveland for a moment. Their top five cap hits in 2015 are Joe Haden, Joe Thomas, Paul Kruger, Alex Mack, and Desmond Bryant. Forget the actual players in question for the time being; is there a faulty logic to investing heavily in DB, OT, OLB, C, and DE?

    Also, notice that QB is not in that list at all, and yet it’s arguably the most important position on the field for any football team. In fact, Johnny Manziel has the top cap number for a QB on the Browns, and he’s #14 on their list of cap numbers.

    This logic that fans claim GMs don’t know which positions to invest heavily in is precisely why the “Joe Flacco is overpaid” philosophy is dumb. He got a very fair amount of guaranteed money when he got his big contract two years ago, and the players who the Ravens chose to dump were all guys who they don’t miss now. They also made sure to lock up the #1 position that requires stability in the NFL. They also invested in their offensive line last year and drastically reduced the number of hits and sacks Flacco took last season. If that isn’t smartly investing in a team, I don’t know what is.

  30. If I am correct the salary cap is in effect 100% of the time. This is just the start of the new year. The new cap limit AND the current contracts (and their cap hits) take effect today. You have to be in compliance when the new figures come into effect. This is why teams have been letting some players go and reworking others contracts as it lowers their overall cap number prior to the new cap limit and contract rates.

    Free agents (Des Bryant) count zero against the cap until they sign OR are designated as the franchise player. Until then, they are free agents and count against no one’s cap.

  31. frotoon2 says: Mar 2, 2015 1:34 PM

    restorative, the salary cap is on a four-year average. Sure, the Raiders have a lot of room, but that’s only because they under-spent the first two years. Now they have to overspend a couple years.
    ——————-
    They under-spent the first two years because McKenzie was cleaning up existing dead money, which doesn’t count against the cap floor.

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