This summer, the Washington Commanders will have a lot of cap space — but not as much as many people believe.

salary cap and the CBA…sweet! I keep reading and hearing folks – Washington fans — stating $100m in available cap space that the next GM will have available for free agency. That amount is false

According to Over the Cap, the Commanders will have fewer than $80 million in available cap space in 2024.
Over the Cap (OTC) and Spotrac are two popular sources for cap space forecasts. Both are excellent at what they do, but I have found OTC to be more consistently precise and reliable over the years. In late December, for example, there was a $2.8m difference in current payroll recorded between the two sources (Spotrac and OTC). When I looked at the data, I saw that Spotrac had left off the team’s three most recent (at the time) roster additions: Jalen Harris, Kyu Blu Kelly, and Joshua Pryor. When I’ve done these kinds of deep dives into the source data throughout the years, I’ve found found OTC consistently more reliable; for this reason, it is Over the Cap that I rely on for NFL salary cap projections.

Both OTC and Spotrac projected the Commanders to have more than $90 million in available cap space at the end of the 2023 season earlier in the season, but things have shifted dramatically since September.

The Washington Commanders will have a lot of cap space this offseason — but not as much as many people think - Hogs Haven

According to OTC, the Commanders will have $78.8 million in cap space at the end of the ’23 season.

What became of all the cap space?
The first thing to keep in mind is that future available cap space is an estimate based on known facts and assumptions.

The roster has been updated.
Since then, roster changes have changed the forecasts for all 32 teams up and down. When long snapper Camaron Cheeseman was released the same week as the tweet above, the Commanders’ predicted 2024 available cap space climbed by the sum of Cheeseman’s remaining ’23 cap hit plus his ’24 cap hit. By December 24th, only four days after the preceding tweet, OTC was predicting $81.7 million for the Commanders.

Since then, a number of Washington players have been placed on injured reserve, and for each one, a new player has been added to the 53-man roster, reducing the team’s available cap space. It is now worth $78.8 million.