The league has set the salary cap at $167MM for the coming year, according to Judy Battista of NFL Network (on Twitter). That marks a $12MM+ bump over last year’s cap figure of $155.27MM. Here is the year-by-year breakdown of the cap, going back to 2013:
- 2013: $123MM
- 2014: $133MM
- 2015: $143.28MM
- 2016: $155.27MM
- 2017: ~$167MM
The $167MM figure falls in line with the most recent estimates we heard, which pegged the cap to be somewhere between $166MM-$169MM. Starting on March 9th, teams will be able to put this extra cash to use in free agency and we should see monster deals for the top players on the open market. The Browns will lead all teams in cap space with $102MM+ in room to spend.
We’ve come a long way in the last twenty years. In 1997, the salary cap was set at $41.5MM. In 1994, the first year of the salary cap, the number limit was just $34.6MM.