NFL Salary Cap Space explained: How much money can each team spend this offseason?

It is that time again when teams do everything they can to get under the NFL Salary Cap. Find out where your team stands and how the cap really works.

The Salary Cap has always been a big topic in the NFL as teams find out who they might have to cut or how much they can pay for a certain player. The NFL has been looking to see how much more they could be able to give teams due to the profits gained in the last calendar year.

The NFL is setting the Salary Cap at $224.8 million for every team in 2023. This is a raise from the $208.2 million that it was in 2022.

Now, that might sound like a lot of money that NFL teams would have to be able to play with, but when everything is broken down, it might not be as much as you think.

How the NFL salary cap is broken down

The Salary Cap is broken down into four main sections: Cap Space, Effective Cap Space, Active Cap Spending, and Dead Money. All of those will be explained here shortly. Those four categories are always updated when trades, releases, and signings occur. The categories will also play a huge role when it comes to owners and general managers wanting the best names that are on free agency.

Here is the breakdown of the four categories:

Active Cap Spending: This is how much money the team is already spending for their players for the year in contacts, signing bonuses, and other incentives.

Dead Money: Fully-guaranteed money that is going to players that have been cut or traded from the team.

Cap Space: This is how much money the team has after the Team Salary Cap minus the Active Cap Spending. Then the Dead Money is subtracted from that total, which then would give you the Cap Space of a team.

Effective Cap Space: How much money the team truly has to spend.

The NFL has a Salary Cap to level the playing field. It also ensures an NFL team does not take on unnecessary financial risk.

How much Salary Cap Space does each NFL team have right now?

Here is a breakdown of the Effective Cap Space right now for each team per overthecap.com:

• Bears: $86,579,461
• Falcons: $61,297,193
• Bengals: $32,026,683
• Raiders: $30,881,318
• Texans: $29,094,959
• Patriots: $27,792,433
• Cardinals: $18,988,613
• Giants: $15,317,128
• Seahawks: $12,676,704
• Packers: $12,494,324
• Commanders: $12,009,673
• Chiefs: $11,185,252
• Lions: $11,123,793
• Titans: $8,159,226
• Broncos: $8,017,458
• Colts: $4,311,921
• Jaguars: $4,276,633
• 49ers: $3,891,088
• Panthers: $2,352,574
• Eagles: -$1,711,965
• Jets: -$2,195,598
• Steelers: -$5,283,124
• Ravens: -$11,632,435
• Browns: -$15,796,696
• Rams: -$17,391,980
• Vikings: -$18,262,910
• Cowboys: -$18,987,464
• Bills: -$21,945,261
• Dolphins: -$22,554,774
• Chargers: -$24,341,242
• Saints: -$28,305,248
• Buccaneers: -$52,256,525

All the teams that are over the cap, with negative in the cap space, have until March 15 to get under the cap before free agency officially opens.