Washington Salary Cap update
September 2, 2024
by Steve Thomas
Congratulations. We’ve made it through the long offseason, training camp, three mostly boring preseason games, and Washington’s final roster cuts. Since we are all anxiously waiting on the regular season to start later this week, for Washington, Sunday afternoon, it seemed like a good time to give everyone a short update on the team’s salary cap status. Basically, I’m obsessive enough to consider spending hours tracking the details of all of the team’s player contracts in a way too large Excel spreadsheet a fun way to spend an afternoon, and I think all of you should get to benefit from my pain. To make this more productive, I’m going to go through each position group. The Hog Sty’s salary cap page is here , if you want to see all of this data for yourself.
Overall
The NFL’s base salary cap for each team this year is $255,400,000. In addition to the base, each team gets to roll over unused cap space from the year before. For Washington, that amounted to approximately $7.7M. Finally, the CBA allows teams to benefit – or suffer – from additional cap adjustments based on certain incentives in player contracts. The specific details are beyond what I’m willing to specifically figure out and explain here, but suffice it to say that Washington gained another $1.5M in incentives. Therefore, the team’s total salary cap for the 2024 season is approximately $264.4M.
In total, Washington has obligated approximately $236M in cap space this season, a number which includes the active roster cap number, the practice squad, injured reserve, the Physically Unable to Perform (“PUP”) list, and the dead cap list. That amounts to approximately 88.8% of the total available cap space, which equates to a little over $28M in free space. Note that this does not include receiver Noah Brown’s contract, the details of which are not yet available.
Offense
In total, Washington has approximately $86.3M in cap space obligated towards the offense, which is a little over 32% of available space.
Quarterbacks
Washington is spending amazingly little on quarterbacks compared to many other teams, even despite having Jayden Daniels’ number 2 overall pick-level contract on the books. In total, this group occupies $13.8M in cap space, which is approximately 5.2% of the total salary cap.
Running backs
Washington’s three running backs occupy just under $5.6M in cap space, including $3.2M to sign free agent Austin Ekeler. This is equates 2.1% of available cap space. All things considered, that level of spending allows the team some flexibility in the event some currently unidentified running back falls in their lap this season.
Wide receivers
In total, Washington has approximately $30.1M obligated towards receivers, which is 10.95% of the team’s available cap space, numbers which, again, do not include Noah Brown. The bulk of this money is going to Terry McLaurin, who has a cap hit of $24.1M this season. Nearly all Washington fans would agree that he’s worth that large of a hit; all the same, though, he needs to produce. The rest of the receivers have cap hits of at or near league minimum, with Dyami Brown slightly higher at $1.5M. Regarding Noah Brown, he had a one year, $2.6M contract with the Texans, including a total of $2.25M guaranteed, which Houston obviously didn’t deem worthy of keeping on their books. Hopefully, Washington paid Brown much less than that, but we’ll see.
Tight Ends
Washington has a total of just over $7.85M in cap space obligated towards the tight ends this year, which is 2.97% of available space. Second string tight end John Bates has the highest cap hit at just under $3.3M, which may not bode well for his future with the team.
Offensive line
Washington’s biggest disaster group, the offensive line, occupies a total of $28.9M in cap space this season, including just under $14.2M for the guards and centers and $14.7M for the tackles. These numbers equate to a total of 10.9% of available cap space, including 5.36% for the guards and centers and 5.57% for the tackles. Washington’s atrociously awful starting right tackle, Andrew Wylie, has the biggest cap hit at $9.4M. Free agent signee Tyler Biadasz, who is the starting center, is next at $4.1M, followed by Samuel Cosmi at $3.66M, and Cornelius Lucas at $2.8M. The remaining players in this group are at or below $1.7M. The disturbing lack of attention Washington’s front office has negligently paid to this group is reflected in the lack of total spending.
Defense
In total, Washington has approximately $102M in cap space obligated towards the defense, which is slightly more than 38.5% of available space.
Defensive line
The defensive line group occupies $56.3M in total cap space, which is 21.29% of the salary cap. This is by far the most expensive position group on the team. With a cap hit of $21.6M, Daron Payne is the leader in the clubhouse, followed by Jonathan Allen at $21.4M. Dorrance Armstrong are Clelin Ferrell are next at $4.89M and $3.75M, respectively. The fact of the matter is that Washington has put entirely too much cap space and draft picks into this position group to justify its performance. Despite all of this money and assets expended, the defensive front has not yet evolved into an elite group.
Linebackers
The linebacker group counts for a total of just less than $19M in cap space. Washington currently lists Bobby Wagner as the team’s only middle linebacker. His cap hit is $6.5M. The rest of the group – 4 players, all outside linebackers – count for approximately $12.5M in cap space. I’ve left Jamin Davis in the linebacker group despite Washington apparently trying to use him as a pass rushing end because the team’s website still lists him as a linebacker. The linebacker group collectively occupies approximately 7.2% of the team’s cap space.
Defensive backs
The defensive backs have a combined total of $26.7M in cap space this season, which is 10.1% of available cap space, including just less than $13M for the corners and $13.7M for the safeties. The highest cap hit this year belongs to corner Jeremy Chinn at $3.9M, followed by corner Michael Davis and corner Emmanuel Forbes, who are both in the $3.5M range. The team has way too many safeties on the roster, which is dumb, but the good news is that most of them are fairly cheap in costs.
Specialists
The specialists include just three players, long snapper Tyler Ott, punter Tress Way, and Washington’s latest and greatest kicker du jour, Cade York, who have a combined cap hit of $6.1M, which is 2.3% of available space.
Dead cap
Washington currently has a pretty significant amount of dead cap, just less than $33.7M, which is 12.7% of available cap space. The biggest hits are Charles Leno at $8.25M, Nick Gates at $5.3M, Curtis Samuel at $4.8M, and Chase Roullier at $4M.
Injured reserve
Currently, the injured reserve list has 5 players for a total of $3.2M, which is 1.2% of available cap space.
Overall thoughts
This year, Washington has chosen to spend approximately $16M more on its defense than its offense, yet despite that, the defense has major holes.
Washington is spending way too much on the defensive line group. The average of the average annual values of all the contracts of the defensive linemen is more than $8.6M, which is by far the highest on the team. This is the price to be paid for investing making the mistake of wasting way too many high draft picks on this position group.
The team hasn’t invested nearly enough in the offensive line, particularly the tackles, who have an average of the average annual values of all of their contracts of just under $3.5M. However, note that this includes Andrew Wylie’s ridiculous $8M cap hit, which is way too high. Without his contract, the average value of the rest of the group would be under $2M. That sort of number is what you’d expect for a bunch of low-level and mid-round draft picks, which is exactly what they are. Washington needs to do better here.
In general terms, in my view, Washington has too much free cap space. It’s clearly smart for teams not to over-burden themselves or get trapped in a number of huge contracts with big guaranteed amounts that tie up tons of space for several years. All the same, though, having more than $28M in free space means that the team could have signed multiple higher end players who may have helped, particularly in the offensive line and defensive back groups, both of which currently being deficient. This isn’t a race to save the most cap space for some sort of future family savings account. Washington’s new leadership needs to do better in this regard.
What do you think? Let me know in the comment section.