NFL Salary Cap Carryover
What is it and how does it work?
Last week we received the first piece of information related to the NFL organization’s 2022 salary cap puzzle, the carryover amounts. Below tweet from @FieldYates
What Does This Mean?
Field’s graphic displays the amount of available salary cap dollars each team has elected to carry over from the 2021 league year to the 2022 league year.
Reference the Collective Bargaining Agreement Article 13 Section 6 Part (v) - Carrying Over Room lays out the process and requirements. Essentially each team must submit their end of the year carry over amount to both the NFL Management Council and NFL Players Association by the close of business on the Tuesday after the regular season.
NFL football administration departments have to pack in end of the year information to develop this final number quickly. For some teams this includes more work (Houston Texans, New England Patriots, Green Bay Packers) as their contracts include per game roster bonuses and incentives. On the other end of the spectrum, there is less work required for others which do not employ such bonuses and incentives (Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers).
Past History
Referencing past NFLPA records I was able to examine past carryover amounts across the league as basis of comparison to the 2022 carry over amounts. 2021 was a difficult year for many organizations with the drop in the league salary cap.
This forced many teams to push cap dollars into the future just to have enough operating room for the 2021 regular season. This was needed to cover replacement players for Injured Reserve, practice squad elevations, and other roster transactions.
As a result of this the average carry over amount for 2022 is lower when compared to past years. Below is a table dating back to 2011, but carry over didn’t start until 2012 under the previous CBA.
Referenced the above table, 2022 carryover was the lowest in terms of league average and individual team maximum. For 2022 the lowest was the New York Giants and the highest amount was the Jacksonville Jaguars. Jacksonville appears on the list for maximum amount more than a few times in the above table.
What’s Next?
The next piece of the puzzle will be the annual team adjustment. This number should get leaked in late February or early March as the new league year approaches. The annual adjustment is the result of worksheet balancing of earned and unearned incentives, grievances, and unclaimed termination pay (and a few more obscure items).
Once the adjustment number is available we can tabulate each team’s individual 2022 adjusted salary cap number.
-TC
As always if you have any questions you can contact me by email Troy@overthecap.com