Is NFL's 2024 Salary Cap Spike Good News for KC Chiefs?
With the new league year arriving next month, teams have a clearer and more official picture of what funds they'll be able to spend on retaining in-house players and acquiring outsiders.
Per a release from the NFL on Friday morning, the 2024 salary cap will be set at $255.4 million. That's a $30M increase for the upcoming year, as well as a $12M or more jump over most projections from recent weeks. The league adds that the increase stems from advances during the COVID-19 pandemic being paid back, as well as a spike in media revenue:
The NFL announced that the 2024 Salary Cap will be $255.4M per club, with an additional $74M per club payment for player benefits, which includes Performance Based Pay and benefits for retired players. Total 2024 player costs will be $329.4M per club, or more than $10.5B league-wide.
The unprecedented $30M increase per club in this year’s Salary Cap is the result of the full repayment of all amounts advanced by the clubs and deferred by the players during the Covid pandemic as well as an extraordinary increase in media revenue for the 2024 season.
This is obviously huge news for all 32 clubs, including the Kansas City Chiefs. The extra room applies to two of their players, in particular. All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones and cornerback L'Jarius Sneed, both impending free agents, are due for hefty paydays. Jones's franchise tag estimate of over $32M makes it extremely difficult to envision something like that happening, and Sneed's prior projection of around $18.8M represented a more palatable figure. Now, the same tag ability remains and there's more room for a long-term deal.
With a higher salary cap ceiling, Kansas City gets a boost in flexibility for contract negotiations. Sneed and Jones's respective camps undoubtedly have firm ideas of what they're worth but if the team chooses, it can now budge that extra bit and move things in a positive direction. With the NFL Scouting Combine approaching, having a firm number to work with is always a plus. It sets or resets the table for negotiations.
More money to go around is a double-edged sword. While that added cap space makes for a potentially more competitive market, it gives organizations opportunities to make their sales pitches a bit more appealing. Time will tell how Kansas City takes advantage of this development, as it could merely lead to a lesser restructuring of a currently-rostered player or a larger investment on a free agent or trade pickup.
With Jones and Sneed taking center stage until free agency, it's hard to not consider that part of the plan. They have wiggle room to ask for more but the Chiefs can, in theory, offer more. The timing of this couldn't pan out much better for the reigning Super Bowl champions, however, as they gain clarity entering a pivotal stretch of the offseason.
