The Nfl Salary Cap Is Expected To Jump Another $25-ish Million In 2026

Green Bay Packers chief operating officer and general council Ed Policy, right, is shown with executive vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball before their team s wild card playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys Sunday, January 14, 2024 in Arlington, Texas.

According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the NFL let franchises know on Friday that the league projects the salary cap to be in the range of $301.2 million to $305.7 million, which is roughly a $25 million jump from the 2025 season, which had a base salary cap of $279.2 million. The base designation is important because it does not include cap that is rolled over from a previous season, which is done at the club level.

Over The Cap has been projecting the 2026 base salary cap at $295.5 million, so this mark comes $6 million to $10 million over their (very conservative) estimation. There’s been a lot of debate from the numbers crunchers about where the cap would fall this year. Most believed it would be closer to the NFL’s projection from Friday than OTC’s numbers. This is all to say: This jump didn’t come from out of the blue.

Since the league has recovered from the dips in cap growth that started during the pandemic season, the NFL has now been regularly adding around $25 million to the cap every year. (Everyone getting more money just means the price of everything goes up. It’s a zero-sum game.)

The best man at covering the Packers’ cap situation outside of 1265 is Ken Ingalls, who, in a document shared with me, has Green Bay projected with $9.5 million in cap space for 2026 (on a $303 million cap) after the releases of center Elgton Jenkins and defensive end Rashan Gary, after including player performance escalators, the cost of the upcoming rookie draft class, tendering exlcusive rights free agents, the projected cost of the practice squad and a $6 million piggy bank for players on the injured reserve who will need to have their spots replaced on the 53-man roster. This includes a $8.7 million salary cap rollover from 2025.

That also doesn’t include the contracts of any free agents (UFA or RFA) retained or extensions for players like Tucker Kraft, Christian Watson or Devonte Wyatt, who are going into contract seasons, either.

It’s not going to be impossible for the Packers to make a free agent signing this offseason, but it’s going to be a tight squeeze with their cap scheduling. The biggest deals they will probably make will be extensions to retain their own players.