Where Do Cardinals Rank in 2024 Cap Space?
ARIZONA -- With just four teams remaining in the quest for a Super Bowl, the Arizona Cardinals are with the vast majority of the NFL looking forward to an offseason where progress is both needed and expected to continue climbing their way back to prominence.
Luckily, the Cardinals don't have to worry about any moves within the front office or searching for a head coach thanks to that process happening last offseason.
When projecting to the future, there's plenty to be excited about if you're Arizona between the plethora of high draft picks and significant cap space to spend.
Where do the Cardinals rank - as of now - in terms of cap space moving into this offseason?
According to OverTheCap, the Cardinals are presently No. 10 with $42.1 million:
Current NFL Cap Space Rankings
- Washington Commanders: $73.6 million
- Houston Texans: $69.9 million
- Tennessee Titans: $69.7 million
- New England Patriots: $66.1 million
- Indianapolis Colts: $62.7 million
- Cincinnati Bengals: $59.4 million
- Detroit Lions: $58.6 million
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers: $47.1 million
- Chicago Bears: $46.8 million
- Arizona Cardinals: $42.1 million
After adding their projected rookie class to the mix, Over The Cap has Arizona at $30.9 million in "effective cap space" they can spend in free agency.
The Cardinals are third in dead money for 2024 with $14.1 million on the books. They trail only the Los Angeles Chargers ($24.5 million) and Cleveland Browns ($14.9 million). Names such as J.J. Watt, Zach Ertz and Rodney Hudson accrue all but roughly $600,000 of that figure.
In his season-ending press conference, Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon spoke on what the team's vision is for 2024:
“The first thing I think you’re talking about during (the offseason) is acquisition, right? I think that Monti has done a fantastic job of the acquisition periods (from) this last year in 2023 and bringing in guys that we see fit to be Cardinals," said Gannon.
"Not to say you don’t make mistakes, but we hit on a lot of those guys. That’s what we told the rookies too, today, because there’s going to be another group that’s injected into this team that now they kind of have to show the way. When a guy gets out of alignment, you’ve got to bring them back into alignment, but the rookie class I can’t say enough about those guys. Some guys that we brought in, not just at draft time but in September or December they hit the price of admission for those guys as team and then you.
"I think that when you do that and continually add those pieces and the coaches improve and the players improve, you’ve got a chance.”
There's a handful of moves the Cardinals can do to create more wiggle room on the salary cap - we highlighted them below:
