NFL Positional Spending in 2024

Hi everyone! Have you ever thought to yourself…how much does each team spend on their position groups? You have? Well, you in are luck. Let’s dig in.

Welcome to the Cap & Trade Newsletter.

As always, the numbers presented below are pulled from the database at Overthecap.com (full disclosure: I contribute to the data entry and other tasks at Overthecap).

The tables and charts below are interactive. Below I will present the data in two ways: Salary Cap Dollar Spending and Average Per Year (APY) Spending.

Viewing positional spending with both numbers is important as salary cap spending may not tell the whole story.

Simply put, the NFL salary cap is an accounting function to allocate the cash spent by a team. On the flip side, it sums the contract's APY value for each position group. Assessing the APY offers a perspective on the actual investment in these contract groups.

The Top 5 teams in terms of APY spending:

• Philadelphia - $353.272 million

• Cleveland - $342.420 million

• San Francisco - $336.859 million

• Jacksonville - $328.071 million

• Miami - $321.497 million

Four of the five teams have one thing in common: a veteran quarterback contract near the top of the APY market value. Unsurprisingly, these five teams have historically been big spenders, both in retaining their players and in the free-agent market.

The Bottom 5 teams in terms of APY spending:

• Las Vegas - $219.059 million

• Los Angeles Rams - $225.602 million

• Los Angeles Chargers - $227.213 million

• New England - $231.848 million

• Washington - $234.059 million

You can hover your mouse over the charts to drill down into the data, and you can sort the tables as needed.

The above chart shows team spending by position group in terms of combined contract APY value. Conversely, the chart below shows team spending in terms of salary cap by position group.