Before NFL free agency officially opens on March 13th, here is a look at where the New York Jets stand salary cap-wise.
At the moment, Over the Cap (OTC) has the Jets with $20.7 million in available cap space, which is the 18th-most in the NFL.
Although, initially, $20.7 million seems like a good starting point for GM Joe Douglas heading into free agency, it’s important to note that this figure does not include some of the typical operating costs that come over an NFL season.
For example, OTC projects that the Jets’ draft class will account for $10.14 million in cap space. That $20.7 million amount also doesn’t include constructing a practice squad, or reserves for in-season spending, whether that be through acquiring new players or practice squad elevations, among other costs.
So, realistically, the Jets are going to have to create more salary cap space. How much depends on how aggressive they plan to be in free agency.
There are a few ways the Jets can go about doing this. The first and most well-known option in creating cap space is through veteran cuts, a path we’ve already seen the Jets go down with Laken Tomlinson, saving about $8.1 million in cap space, and CJ Uzomah, a move that saved $5.3 million in 2024 cap space.
When discussing roster cuts, the key term to know is dead cap. These are dollars that count against the salary cap even if the player isn’t on the team because they’ve already been paid out to the player but haven’t counted against the salary cap yet.
Dead cap often comes from signing bonuses since the cap hits from those payouts and can be spread out over the life of a contract. Let’s say, for example, a player signs a new three-year contract with a $9 million signing bonus included.
For salary cap purposes, rather than incurring that $9 million cap hit all in Year 1, a team will pro-rate the cap hit from that signing bonus over the three-year deal. However, if the player is then released after Year 1, there will be a dead cap hit of $6 million ($3 million from Year 2 and $3 million from Year 3) left on the Year 2 books.
In short, that’s the mechanics of how dead cap works, and if a player’s dead cap hit is less than their cap hit if on the roster, the team can net cap savings by releasing them. Uzomah’s 2024 cap hit was $11.2 million, and his dead cap hit was $5.9 million, giving the Jets $5.3 million in savings.
The second way that the Jets can create cap space is through a contract restructure–or kicking the salary cap can down the road. Ideally, this will be for a player with two or even three years left on their contract.
Due to base salaries and roster bonuses counting completely towards the current year’s salary cap, a restructure will convert portions of those dollars to a signing bonus, which again, can be pro-rated over the life of the contract.
Using the same figures as above, if a player has three years left on his contract and between his base salary and roster bonus, the team converts $9 million of it to a signing bonus, they can now lower the current year’s cap hit by $6 million, with $3 million in cap charges remaining in the current year, $3 million going to Year 2, and another $3 million in Year 3.
The downside to a restructure is that while a team will benefit from added cap space in the moment, they reduce their cap flexibility in future years because they’ve pushed additional cap charges to those upcoming seasons.
Now, an added wrinkle to the contract restructure are void years, a tool that is becoming more common in the NFL. If a player is in the final year of his contract and a team adds two void years to his deal, that is not an extension. His contract is still up at the end of the season.
However, void years are dummy years added on for bookkeeping purposes. On paper, and for salary cap purposes, the team now has three total years (the current year plus two void years) to spread the restructured signing bonus out over.
But – and there is always a but – when the contract terminates the following offseason, using the restructure example above, that $6 million in cap charges pushed to Years 2 and 3 accelerate and will be left on the Year 2 salary cap as dead cap, even if that player is playing elsewhere.
Zack Rosenblatt of The Athletic listed CJ Mosley, Quinnen Williams, John Franklin-Myers, Allen Lazard, and Quincy Williams as contract restructure candidates earlier this offseason.
The last cap-saving maneuver is through an extension. Although new money is being added to the contract, so are additional years, and to help lower the current year’s cap hit, teams will often – like a restructure – take a portion of the base salary and/or roster bonus and convert it to a signing bonus to be pro-rated over the now newly extended life of the deal.
Rosenblatt named DJ Reed and Tyler Conklin as possible extension candidates for the Jets.
If all the moves mentioned by Rosenblatt were to be completed and maxed out from a cap standpoint, meaning the Jets squeezed every bit of 2024 cap space out of those restructures and extensions and pushed as much as possible to 2025 and beyond, they could create an additional $52.51 million on top of what they already have available, according to OTC.
With that said, I don’t envision that happening because that means $52.51 million in cap charges will be on the future books, but it goes to show what options are available to Douglas, who does likely need to create more cap space wiggle room.