Things are picking up as the NFL and NFLPA try to come to an agreement on economics for the future.
NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero and Mike Garafolo first reported that the latest proposal the NFL sent to the NFLPA has the projected revenue shortfall spread out over the next four years of the salary cap. It’d start with the 2021 NFL season with a set salary cap of $175 million, assuming that the revenue shortfall is as significant as currently predicted. Under normal circumstances, the 2021 salary cap would have been projected in the $210 million range, but the coronavirus has changed all of that.
According to projections from Over The Cap’s Jason Fitzgerald, the Kansas City Chiefs would be $25.7 million over the salary cap with a $175 million salary cap in 2021. It’s good for the fourth-worst salary-cap situations in the NFL under the new proposal. That number doesn’t include the cap charges for the Chiefs’ unsigned 2020 rookie draft class. Also, consider that it comes before Kansas City has re-signed any pending free agents for 2021. That list includes players such as Sammy Watkins, Bashaud Breeland, Mike Pennel, Tanoh Kpassagnon, Daniel Sorensen, Austin Reiter, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif and so on.
Were the NFL and NFLPA to agree to this deal, the Chiefs would likely have to make a wave of roster cuts either this year or in 2021, to satisfy the new salary cap. Among the players who make sense are Alex Okafor, Eric Fisher, and Chad Henne. Really a lot of the veterans and backups are going to feel the brunt of this type of change and it might be hard for them to find new work.
One positive note is that K.C. is projected to have eight draft picks in the 2021 NFL Draft. They’ll be able to replace some players lost in free agency and cuts in the draft. They’ll really be relying heavily on the players from the 2020 draft to pan out too.
I can’t help but wonder if Kansas City won’t extend some players — Tyrann Mathieu and Travis Kelce come to mind — in hopes of kicking the can down the road and creating smaller cap hits in the interim as the league deals with revenue losses. They could always use the unique structure of Patrick Mahomes and Chris Jones’ contracts to create some cap space as well, by converting base salary to signing bonus.
Brett Veach’s salary cap team, Brandt Tilis and Chris Shea, will need to get creative if this ends up being the reality of the 2021 season.
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