Let’s look forward into 2024

December 11, 2023

by Steve Thomas

Since Washington wasn’t able to lose this past week, since they had a bye week, so it seemed like a good time to take a step back and look at the status of the roster.  In terms of the players on the field, the biggest questions revolve around which players will remain and which will either be cut loose outright or traded for additional assets.  It seems overwhelmingly likely that Ron Rivera, general manager, and Ron Rivera, head coach, will both be fired, along with the rest of the coaching staff.  As a result, the new staff will want to put their own stamp on the organization.  That means, cuts and trades.  Let’s go through the salary cap for 2024 and see who might be major candidates to stay and who’s probably going to be gone one way or the other.

2024 Summary

We have a comprehensive salary cap page on this website, which you can find by clicking here.  Washington currently has 33 players under contract for the 2024 season, for a total cap hit of approximately $161M.  However, a portion of Washington’s dead cap from this year will roll into next year.  That’s a bit hard to calculate without more brain damage than I’m willing to take on right now, so let’s just estimate the dead cap rollover at a total of $9M, to give Washington an even $170M in current salary cap expenditures for 2024.  The NFL recently indicated in media reports that they weren’t going to announce an estimate of next year’s cap right now, but various sources estimate that the cap will rise to at least $240M.  Given the state of the NFL’s media contracts, it could easily be higher, but we’ll be conservative for now and stick with $240M. This leaves Washington in the neighborhood of an estimated $70M in free cap space.  That   In addition, Washington will also be able to roll over unused space from this season into 2024.  Right now, Washington has approximately $15M in available cap space.

This means that Washington will have somewhere in the range of at least $85M in free cap space next year, maybe more, before making any roster moves at all.  That’s enough space to make major free agent signings without making any cuts.

I’m not going to list every single player here in this column, because they are all listed on our salary cap page; instead, I’m going to briefly discuss some of the important and relevant players on both offense and defense, starting with the offense.

Offense

Terry McLaurin is probably Washington’s best overall player, but he’s had a bit of a down year by his standards,  Next year, he will count for more than $24M against the cap.  Washington will not cut him, of course, but he could be a valuable trade asset if the new ownership wants to go another, cheaper direction.  A pre-June 1 trade will bring a dead cap hit of $16.8M, so Washington would save a little more than $7M.

Charles Leno counts for more than $15M in 2024, with a pre-June 1 dead cap of 8.25M, which equates to a savings of about 7.5M if he’s cut.  Leno’s been mostly decent during his time in Washington, but he’s not elite and pales in comparison with the guy he replaced, Trent Williams, who Ron Rivera stupidly traded.  Washington needs an upgrade here and I think it’s highly likely that they draft a new left tackle in either round 1 or 2.

Logan Thomas represents a cap hit of more than $8.3M next year, and has a dead cap figure of less than $2M; plus, he’s older, not performing like he used to, and has suffered injuries during his time in DC.  Therefore, I think it’s likely that Thomas is either cut or traded for a minimal return.

Andrew Wylie has been the worst anchor of a tragically untalented offensive line, and needs to get gone as soon as possible.  Wylie is probably Ron Rivera’s worst free agent signing, with a contract that runs through 2025 and has a cap hit of $9.4M in 2024.  His pre-June 1 dead cap hit is $7.8M, so he represents a savings of only $1.6M, but Wylie’s departure will be addition by subtraction.  It just didn’t work in Washington.

Center Nick Gates was atrocious at center before being benching in favor of his backup, former practice squad player Tyler Larsen.  He’s signed to a three year contract through 2025 and has a cap hit of just under $5.5M in 2024.  Unfortunately, his pre-June 1 dead cap hit is $5.3M, so cutting him early in the offseason would essentially be no savings.  Washington could cut him as a post-June 1 move and save around $1.7M in 2024.  I can’t imagine the team keeping him, so I think that’s the most likely course of action.

Those are the only major contracts on offense for next year.  Everyone else, including current quarterback Sam Howell, is either on a minimal or rookie contract.  Certainly, many more moves will be made, but none of them will make a big difference to the salary cap.

Defense

Jonathan Allen is signed through 2025 and has a cap hit of $21.5M and a pre-June 1 dead cap hit of $12M in 2024.  Allen has underperformed this season and has shown a poor attitude, especially recently, so while I wouldn’t have predicted this at the beginning of this season, I think there’s a greater than zero percent chance that Washington trades him if they get a valuable enough offer.  A pre-June 1 trade would be a savings of $9.5M.

Daron Payne has also been somewhat disappointing this year, although less so than Allen.  Payne has had a few moments of difference-making here and there, and hasn’t displayed a poor attitude as Allen has done.  His cap hit in 2024 is $21.6M, so he’s a big chunk of cap space; however, given the reality of his new, ginormous contract, he is uncuttable in any circumstance, and the only way he could be traded is as a post-June 1 transaction, meaning after free agency and the draft have already come and gone.  As a result, if Washington wants to make another defensive line move, it’s probably going to be Allen, not Payne.  Expect Payne to be on the roster next season.

That’s it for large contracts on the defense – all others are either fairly small, relatively speaking, or rookie deals.  Both Emmanuel Forbes and Jartavius Martin have been disappointing, but since they were first and second round picks, respectively, this season, I can’t imagine the team moving them absent being blown away by a trade offer.  That most likely isn’t going to happen.  Kendall Fuller is the other defensive player with a large 2023 cap hit, but he’s going to be a free agent in 2024.  I expect many other players to be cut, of course, at least if the new staff knows what they’re doing, but none of the rest are going to make large impacts on the 2024 salary cap.

Conclusion  

In total, if Washington’s new leadership team wanted to really go crazy and either cut or trade all of the big-salary players they realistically could, that would probably be Leno, Thomas, Wylie, and Allen.  If all four of those players were pre-June 1 cuts, that would be a total cap savings of more than $25M, which would bring their free cap space up to $110M or more prior to free agency.  Gates’ cut will probably come later in the offseason.  Honestly, I think it would be difficult for Washington to spend that much in free agency, even if they were going to sign one of the top quarterbacks on the market, such as . . . gulp . . . Kirk Cousins.  It would certainly have to be an epic amount of signings in order to spend that much, even taking the draft into account.  I have a very hard time imagining that the team would be willing to part with McLaurin, so I’m going to leave them out.

What do you think?  Leave a comment below.