#salary-cap

#salary-cap

There are a lot of them, and they do not exist only on social media. They are inside of group chats that talk about how much money the Los Angeles Dodgers are spending after winning the past two World Series, and they are in cities big and small that look at the Dodgers with envy masked by eye-rolls and curses.

With the Super Bowl in the rearview and the new league year just a few short weeks away, it's time to turn the page and start thinking about the Falcons' 2026 season and what needs to happen this offseason to field a competitive team in September. James Pearce Jr's arrest may change the calculations on the team's needs this offseason, and the list of pending free agents opens up some big questions the team needs to answer while building the 2026 roster.

As I wrote back on January 6, Atlanta's contract adjustment for Kirk Cousins indicated that they were going to cut him, given that they would have a truly unpalatable cap hit next year if they did not. Now Adam Schefter is reporting that the Falcons are planning to do so before the start of the new league year, likely as a post-June 1 designation, a move that will give the team a bit more cap space now and save quite a bit next year.

They, like Carolina, have cap space for the future. They've got a lot of prospects, and they've got their draft picks. So for Washington, it's not really about this year. Like, they'd like to get in [the playoffs], obviously. But whatever available talent they could add in their top six, it's about this year and the future. So they're in on a bunch of different things. They'd like to make a splash.

Olney: Financial disparity among teams has long existed, but the Dodgers' payroll will serve to galvanize the effort of other owners to rebuild the sport's financial system through some kind of proposed cap-and-floor design. As one former player said: "It's like we're back in 1994 -- you've got some owners looking for the players to solve ownership issues." The players went on strike in August of 1994, of course, and that fall's World Series was canceled. But it remains to be seen how far the owners will push to revamp the system, and whether the players' coalition will hold together as strongly as it did three decades ago.

As I received the X notification from ESPN's Shams Charania that Luka Doncic had been traded for Anthony Davis, my face went paler than Marlon Wayans in 2004 with movie makeup on. What do you mean, Doncic is now a Laker and Davis is now a Maverick? Why? How? WHO is Nico Harrison?! I'd then spent the next - way too many, I lost count - hours not doom-scrolling, but furiously

McMann is in the midst of a career season, something that, as an impending UFA, could mean a lucrative contract. I for one would love to see McMann stay in Toronto. He's been a rare find. He's one of the few young forwards the Leafs didn't actually give up on. If anything, they gave him a real shot at proving he's NHL material.

Barcelona's idea was for Ter Stegen to regain rhythm and visibility at Girona, perform consistently, and use that momentum to re-enter the market ahead of next season. The club believed this scenario would allow the goalkeeper to attract interest from top-level teams, while also putting himself in a strong position ahead of the upcoming World Cup with the German national team.

Winning MLS Cup brings only a couple guaranteed returns: the cup itself and a cash prize ($300,000, roughly the salary of one MLS backup defender). Historically, it has also ushered in a near-mandatory squad rebuild, a consequence of MLS's parity-driven design. With rare exceptions, great teams find it nigh-on-impossible to keep the band together, or to improve on what they already have.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss... Tim's recent post looking at MLB's economics and issues of parity (1:20) The possibility of a salary cap coming into existence at some point in the future (5:25) Comparing the salary cap path to alterations to the current revenue sharing system (8:40) The public relations battle with fans knowing all about players and their salaries but not necessarily knowing so much about the owners and their finances (17:35)

The Cowboys' most expensive decision in the 2026 offseason will come at wide receiver. Do they re-sign George Pickens for what is sure to be one of this year's most lucrative non-QB contracts? Do they utilize the franchise tag, which would cost them even more in salary cap space? Or do they let Pickens walk, losing one of their most important offensive weapons and creating a new, significant offseason need?

As we briefed here, the Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors cannot legally do a one-for-one swap between Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kuminga. The Warriors are hard-capped below the second apron, and such a swap would put them over. The only feasible way is if the Warriors trim salary either 1.) in this trade or 2.) in a separate deal (as a salary dump). They are less than $300K away from the hard cap. There is little margin for error in what they can send out relative to what they can bring back.

FC Bayern played an outstanding first half of the Bundesliga season, they've also been once again very successful internationally, and are thus making yet another enormous contribution to the positive perception of the quality of German football. Regarding the international marketing of the league, we know from our international partners that an exciting title race, top stars with global appeal, strong club brands, and international success for clubs and the national team are the key success factors.

If I was Miami Dolphins new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan or new coach Jeff Hafley, I wouldn't sign Green Bay Packers backup quarterback Malik Willis to a multi-year free agent contract to be Miami's starter. We'll find out in a matter of weeks what Sullivan, the former Green Bay vice president of player personnel, and Hafley, the former Packers defensive coordinator, think of the athletic, 26-year-old Willis, who is eligible to become a free agent.

When you have momentum like we have that you've worked as hard as we have to get, you know that is a force that puts people in a frame of mind that they should understand they need to make an agreement, OK? Despite that momentum, we have a couple of issues that we hear about from our fans all the time: blackouts and the perception that some teams are not competitive. We got to address those issues. How we figure out the way to address those issues is the challenge of the bargaining process, and jumping to the idea that it's going to be salary cap, no salary cap is a premature thing to do. To maintain the momentum we all understand we have, I think we need to address those two issues and I think we'll figure out a way to do it.

If you go and you have a lockout right now, during peak Shohei Ohtani time and Aaron Judge time and coming off a World Series that had 51 million viewers at a time when the NBA has struggled with its ratings, where it's very competitive to get eyeballs in this day and age, if Major League Baseball had a lockdown, it could set this sport back by a decade at least,

The big news this week is the Dodgers winning the Kyle Tucker and the Mets grabbing Bo Bichette. It's some big money. Kyle Tucker is getting that partially deferred 60MM AAV and Bo Bichette is getting an player option protected 43MM AAV. I don't begrudge them. They're both at the top of a very high profile profession where the top get the tippy-top cash. It might be getting hard to see anything but the bucks though.