Tight end Jack Doyle announced his retirement from the NFL on Monday and because he still had one year left on his contract, the Indianapolis Colts got a bit of a bump in salary cap space.
As the league set the 2022 salary cap at $208.2 million, the Colts now know exactly where they stand. Doyle’s retirement saved them roughly $5.45 million while the team incurs a dead-cap hit of $750,000.
As it currently stands with a week until free agency, the Colts have $42.47 million in salary-cap space, according to Over The Cap. In effective salary-cap space (i.e. top-51 rule), the Colts have $40.9 million in salary-cap space.
The top-51 rule accounts for the “maximum salary-cap space a team will have when it signs at least 51 players to its roster.” Essentially, only the 51 most expensive contracts count against a team’s salary cap. In this area, the Colts have the fourth-most effective salary cap in the NFL.
The NFLPA Public Salary-Cap Report has the Colts sitting with $40.2 million in salary-cap space.
Much of this will change over the next month or so. Regardless of how active they are in free agency, it all comes down to the situation surrounding quarterback Carson Wentz.
The Colts are already on the hook for $15 million of Wentz’s salary-cap hit in 2022. If he’s still on the roster by March 18, another $12 million will be added to that cap hit. It comes in the form of a $5 million roster bonus and $7 million of his base salary being guaranteed.
The Colts are also going to try to sign some of their own pending free agents like tight end Mo Alie-Cox, especially now that Doyle has retired.
We’ll see just how active the Colts are in free agency, but they are still in a very solid standing when it comes to the salary cap.