NFL informed teams today the salary cap this season will be a minimum of $180 million.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 18, 2021
The salary cap won’t be as low as initially projected, it turns out. On Thursday, the NFL informed teams that the cap will be no less than $180 million, which is higher than the floor of $175 million that was first set by the league.
A $180 million salary cap would still be a significant decrease from last year when it was $198.2 million. And considering the salary cap has increased by at least $10 million in each of the last seven years, a decrease of any amount is rare.
Even with a $180 salary cap, though, the Rams will be way over the limit. According to Over the Cap, they’re projected to be $26.2 million over the salary cap if it’s set at $180 million. That will change once the Jared Goff-Matthew Stafford trade becomes official, but the Rams will still need to get under the cap by March 17 when the new league year begins.
Here’s the full memo sent by the NFL to the 32 teams.
https://t.co/j6Gn90JoM5 pic.twitter.com/boqk0PWHvB
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 18, 2021
The Rams will have a lot of moves to make in order to create the necessary cap space, including releases, restructures and possibly additional trades. We outlined five moves they can make to free up $50 million in cap space, though the team is unlikely to make all of them this offseason.
