2024 NFL free agency: The salary cap explained
The NFL salary cap is a complicated beast, but it’s one of the most important things to know in order to form a good team. The 2024 salary cap is set to $255.4 million. Here’s what that means for the teams, players, and the players’ contracts. What is a salary cap? The salary cap is a limit on the amount of money an NFL team can spend on player contracts (including base salary and bonuses). This is different from other sports leagues like the NBA because it is a hard cap, leaving no room for flexibility. The cap is set to $255.4 million this year, and no team may exceed that number. It was implemented as a way for the league to control spending on player salaries and limit financial risks. The NFL believes that it is more fair to have every team with the same spending limitation to avoid rich owners simply buying better players (and therefore, presumably, Super Bowl trophies) simply because they can. The salary cap number increases nearly every year (with the exception of 2020 aft...