It seems that the potential rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine is causing optimism across the board, including in the NFL league offices. According to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, the league is anticipating the possibility that stadiums across the league – some empty throughout the entire 2020 season, could be back at full capacity for 2021. With that and the pending new television deals on the horizon, the 32 teams may have more cap space to work with than anticipated.
Coming into the 2020 season, the teams agreed to set a floor for the 2021 salary cap. It would go no lower than $175 million. The cap is set not just by revenue earned, which has taken a tremendous hit with two-thirds empty stadiums. It is also tied into expected revenue. If the league forecasts full stadiums, concessions and game-day merchandise sales to ramp back up in 2021, then they may be able to tweak the cap. For the Cowboys especially, a $195 million expected cap makes a world of difference.
The Cowboys may be able to afford a second-consecutive franchise tag on quarterback Dak Prescott without jettisoning any of their high-value contracts. We’ve covered how the team could be looking at potentially ridding themselves of Jaylon Smith, Ezekiel Elliott or even Amari Cooper’s contracts if they needed to create cap space. While those moves could still happen, it won’t be necessary for the first piece of their 2021 offseason puzzle, retaining Prescott.
Prescott is currently (not) playing under the franchise tag. The deadline to work out a long-term agreement expired in July, meaning the two sides cannot officially negotiate a new deal even though he has nothing else to do but rehab his leg.
While his worth has been proven in his absence, that doesn’t necessarily mean a deal is imminent once they can negotiate again in January. It’s a real possibility Dallas will need to franchise tag him again before the 2021 league year.
That will cost the team $36.9 million in cap space.
The Cowboys have a projected $27.5 million of space if the cap is down to $175 million. If it comes in at $195 million (still well below what was budgeted for), then that gives them $47.5 million in space.
That’s enough that they can proceed to the offseason with Prescott protected and without having to release anyone.
That’s a night and day difference in what they could be forced to do otherwise.
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