What Major Jump in NFL Salary Cap Means for Buccaneers

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and general manager Jason Licht have quite a lot of work to do this offseason. Tampa Bay's roster isn't as tight as previously thought, and depth is a concern at almost every position where the starters themselves are lacking.

There are a few roster holes, like inside linebacker and edge rusher, among others, that the Bucs should address in free agency. They'll have plenty of money to do it, as the NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported on Friday that the salary cap is expected to jump higher than assumed for the second season in a row.

Will that help the Bucs, though? Let's break it down.

NFL salary cap set to make big jump

Per Pelissero, the cap is set to go up from $279.2 million to somewhere in the range of $301.2 million to $305.7, a fairly significant jump — in fact, it's almost $100 million more than what the cap was three years ago, depending on where that number actually lands.

The NFL informed clubs today it is projecting a 2026 salary cap in the range of $301.2 million to $305.7 million per club, per source.

That would represent another significant jump from this year’s $279.2 million cap number, and nearly $100M than the $208.2M cap in 2022. pic.twitter.com/3Mr146H01C
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 30, 2026

This will give teams a lot more to work with in the offseason, and it's mainly thanks to the NFL's increasingly lucrative television deals that give teams so much more to work with every year. With this number in mind, Over the Cap projects the Buccaneers to have $24,782,210 in cap space at the start of the offseason, a number that will increase as various moves are made.

That's all well and good, but how does this affect the Bucs? Well, it does in a number of ways, and particularly when it comes to their own players.

What does this mean for the Buccaneers?

The increase in cap is as much about the long term as it is now. Naturally, those two philosophies will feed off each other, and extra security later down the line could help the Bucs get more aggressive in the short term.

Any restructures the Bucs would like to do — we talked a little bit about some possibilities here — will become more secure in the long term as the salary cap continues to rise, as restructuring involves moving salary to a roster bonus and creating void years where that guaranteed money is paid out later. Those void years get easier to deal with as the cap dramatically increases, so teams like the Bucs could be more willing to restructure certain contracts to get more money right now and potentially hunt for some big-name free agents.

This will also make retaining players much easier, as it offers more room for teams to do so. Combine this with some team-friendly deals, and players like tight end Cade Otton or cornerback Jamel Dean could be easier to retain with some extra breathing room than initially thought. This works both ways — other teams may be now willing to pay for those free agents — but it also means that the Bucs could dole out more than they were expecting in order to guarantee a player they like returns to the team, and we know how much Licht loves to do that.

Overall, more breathing room will help the Bucs. And if they wanted to spend on a free agent, they might have some more firepower to do it.

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