#nfl-salary-cap

#nfl-salary-cap

Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones has famously said he would cut a check for an embarrassing amount of money if it meant his team would end its now 30-year drought of reaching the Super Bowl. In the salary cap era, there are limitations for the NFL's most valuable franchise to buy its way into a Lombardi Trophy run. However, one area of team building that allows Jones to keep his piggy bank open is spending money on coaches.

Allegretti has been seldom seen in the starting lineup since getting benched after just two games. Most fans thought the free-agent signing in 2024 would be a prime salary-cap candidate during the offseason. That might still be the case, but he did his chances of seeing out the deal a tremendous amount of good versus the Cowboys on Christmas Day.

The projected NFL salary cap for 2026 is $295,500,000. T he Cowboys currently sit at $34,906,087over the cap, with $330,406,087 in cap commitments already on the books. This means flexibility is not something Dallas will have, it's something they will need to create. The franchise tag becomes a timing mechanism. A tool that prevents emerging talent from touching the open-market while Dallas works backwards through extensions, restructures, and cuts.

As we head toward the playoffs, three NFL teams are carrying more than $100MM in dead money. That represents more than a third of the salary cap. The 49ers are also on track to make the playoffs with more than $100MM allocated to players no longer on their 53-man roster. Here is where the 32 teams stand for dead money (via OverTheCap) with three weeks left in the regular season:

There were impressive high points, such as leading the league in interceptions during the 2021 season with 11 picks, as well as some low points, most of which came over the last three seasons. With Diggs back at practice this week, there was some hope that he could ultimately be activated from the IR and rejoin the team for Week 15's matchup against the Minnesota Vikings. Saturday afternoon, we learned that is not happening, as ESPN's Todd Archer reported the veteran cornerback would not be activated for this weekend's game.

After some new intel from a respected team insider, it's not hard to see why. McLaurin hasn't been on the practice field since voluntary workouts. He wants an extension before the final year of his deal, and has done everything possible in an attempt to force the issue. General manager Adam Peters hasn't budged, unwilling to meet the wide receiver's demands in pursuit of an agreement that doesn't jeopardize the team's long-term planning.