Salary Cap Officially Set At $198.2M Per Team

According to Tom Pelissero, the salary cap has been officially set at $198.2 million per team by the NFL. 

The last projection by the NFL and NFLPA figured the cap would be around $200 million, so this is slightly below those estimates. 

Bill Barnwell points out that this would be a 5.3 percent increase, which would be the smallest the cap has gone up since 2013. The 2019 salary cap was set at $188.2 million. 

While this is a lower increase than expected, most expect the recently passed CBA agreement, which includes an expanded playoff starting in 2020 and 17-game regular season as soon as 2021, to dramatically push revenue and thus the salary cap upward in the coming years.

The cap has gone up 65 percent dating back to 2011, which amounts to $76 million per team. The total projected player costs, including benefits, will be more than $7.7 billion in 2020 based on this projection. 

NFL teams are required to spend 89 percent of their cap and cash spending has to be 95 percent of the salary cap limit over a period of four years or the difference will go to the union, who would distribute the money between the players.

We’ll have more regarding the 2020 salary cap as the news is available.