Roster and Salary Cap Update

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July 31, 2020

by Steve Thomas

Since we are about to head into the heart of 2020’s version of training camp, I wanted to take a quick moment to update everyone on the Redskins Washington’s roster and salary cap situations.

First, because of the modified health-related rules this year, all NFL teams have the option of keeping 90 players on their roster through August 16 if they work in split squads to keep 80 in the building at a time, but must get down to 80 by that date.  As of publication, Washington has 80 healthy and active players, plus 2 on the Active Physically Unable to Perform list (Reuben Foster and Alex Smith), and one on the Active Non-Football Injury List (Kelvin Harmon), all of which count against the roster and salary cap limit.

The team also has one in the International Player Pathway Program, David Bada, plus two on the exempt list (Caleb Brantley, who has a COVID-19 designation, and Cody Latimer, who has pending felony charges in Colorado), and one who is suspended through game 1 of the regular season, Thomas Simeon, none of whom count against the roster. Brantley is out for the season with his high risk COVID-19 opt out, but Simeon will return to the roster after his suspension.  Latimer’s status is dependent on resolution of his criminal case and any possible suspension from the NFL Commissioner’s office.

This means that Washington will have to make some roster moves by August 16 in order to get down to a total of 80 players in the building.

From a salary cap perspective, the NFL is still operating under the Rule of 51 until the start of the regular season.  Under this rule, only the top 51 contracts count against the salary cap in order to allow teams to have expanded rosters in training camp without exceeding the cap.  Contract data for one new arrival, tackle Kevin Pamphile, is still not available, but regardless, by my count, Washington is sitting at approximately $29M in cap space, taking a guess at Pamphile’s contract into account.  The NFL is also certainly going to have salary cap issues in 2021 stemming from a sharp decrease in ticket sales (or no ticket sales, depending on how things go), so having cap space available is a good idea.  The rumor floating around is that the NFL and the NFLPA have talked about a $175M salary cap next season, but that’s not set in stone.

All of this information can be found on our roster and salary cap pages, which are linked above.