NFL projects 2025 salary cap to rise to at least $277.5 million
The NFL informed teams in a memo Wednesday the salary cap is projected to rise again in 2025 between the range of $277.5 million to $281.5 million per club this upcoming offseason.
The information comes ahead of next week's NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, set to take place from Feb. 27 to March 2.
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Last year's salary cap was set at $255.4 million — making for a jump of between $22.1 million and $26.1 million in 2025. The figure is below the cap increase for 2024 of $30.6 million — the 2023 cap was $224.8 million — but does make for a rise of, at minimum, nearly $53 million over the past two seasons. The new projection also means the cap will have risen over $20 million for the third time in four years and marks the fourth straight season that the salary cap has increased.
The salary cap range is subject to change based on negotiations with the NFL Players Association, but the league expects those talks to wrap next week, per the memo.
The announcement bodes well for free agents with the negotiation period for unrestricted free agents opening on March 10 at noon ET. The New England Patriots, Las Vegas Raiders, Washington Commanders, Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Chargers have the most cap space, according to Over The Cap, a cap-tracking website. Additionally, the franchise tag period opened Tuesday and runs through March 4.
Wednesday's news is also a welcome development for teams that are tight against the cap or facing difficult financial decisions regarding whether to move on or renegotiate a deal for a player with a sizable cap number. Over The Cap currently shows five teams to be over the salary cap: the Atlanta Falcons, Seattle Seahawks, Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns and New Orleans Saints — with two more (Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins) over on effective cap space.
Unused cap space carries over from year to year, so teams don't necessarily need to spend the full amount this season. Teams must be under the salary cap by the start of the 2025 league year on March 12 at 4 p.m. ET.
The salary cap for the coming year is expected to jump by more than $20 million, which means all NFL teams will receive a significant chunk of spending money for free agency and the draft.
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Why such a big jump?
Every year, the salary cap is set based on the previous year's revenue. But last year's cap figure of $255.4 million was as such because the NFL and NFLPA had agreed following the 2020 season – the year in which revenue was severely impacted by COVID-19 restrictions – that they would spread out the losses over several seasons rather than take such a huge hit in one year. Essentially, the two sides agreed to borrow cap space from future seasons to help compensate for the loss incurred when teams played in mostly empty stadiums.
Last year, the NFL and NFLPA played on a salary cap that was $10 million less than it could have been (based on the 2023 revenue) because $9 million of that reduction was borrowed to soften the COVID-19 blow, and another $1 million was added for players' performance based bonuses.
For now, this year's salary cap figure is a rough projection. The league, in the memo to teams, explained that the spending limit will fall somewhere between $277.5 million and $281.5 million. The league is waiting for NFLPA officials to notify it on how the union wants the final $9 million of the COVID-19 deferred hit to be broken up between this year and next.
It's believed that once the NFL releases the final revenue figures from the 2024-25 season (including earnings from the postseason and Super Bowl), the NFLPA will then come to a decision on how to split the remaining $9 million up between the 2025 and 2026 seasons. — Mike Jones, national NFL writer
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