NFL Sets Salary Cap at $182.5 million, Where the Browns Stand

The NFL has announced the official amount for the 2021 salary cap, setting the number at $182.5 million, which is $15.7 million lower than 2019. Where the Cleveland Browns stand with it.

The long awaited salary cap for the 2021 has been set at $182.5 million, only $2.5 million over the floor. Due to the drop in revenue as a result of the pandemic, the salary cap dropped $15.7 million from the $198.2 million number set last year. Combined with the anticipated increase that comes from a typical year, that's a total drop off of around $27.5 million, which is why so many teams are seemingly caught flat footed.

Due to the money rolled over from last year, the Cleveland Browns will be working with an adjusted cap number of $211,909,691.

Factoring in the release of Adrian Clayborn from Tuesday, the Cleveland Browns should have $24,363,031 currently.

That gives them room to operate and enables them to be as aggressive as they want to be in free agency and through trades. The Browns will still need to create money along the way as they are going to want to maintain a sizable amount of money to rollover in 2022, so they can keep paying their talent and benefit from what should be a significant bounce back in terms of the salary cap.

Between the proliferation of vaccinations to combat the pandemic which could enable fans to attend games and new broadcasting deals, league revenue for the 2021 season could spike and since the salary cap is tied to league revenue, it would spike with it.

Now that the salary cap is official, the Browns and other teams will be able to start discuss restructuring contracts to create additional cap space as needed to enable them to continue adding talent as well as maintain that rollover space to make sure they are in position to capitalize on a potential spike in the salary cap next year.