From year to year, NFL teams are permitted to carry over unused cap space from the previous year to the current year, which allows teams that don’t spend as much one year to have a bit more cap room the next.
Though the NFL has not yet announced the official salary cap number for the 2017 season, the NFLPA today did announce how much cap space each team carried over from the previous year. The Colts have carried over $6,614,100 in unused cap space from last year, which is the 13th-most among NFL teams.
Wondering which teams will have the most to spend this offseason? pic.twitter.com/uDNgOZfn6O
— NFLPA (@NFLPA) January 18, 2017
The NFL reportedly told teams in December that the salary cap is expected to be between $166 million and $170 million, and the league has typically been low on their estimates in the past - so in other words, there figures to be another nice jump from year-to-year.
Over the Cap is currently using a projected salary cap of $168 million, then, and using those numbers the Colts are projected to have $50,037,261 available to spend this year (factoring in the carryover, which makes the Colts’ cap number a bit higher than the base cap number for the rest of the NFL).
It is worth noting that a couple other AFC South teams have much more carryover than the Colts do, however, as the Jaguars will carry over $39,314,310 while the Titans will carry over $24,046,522. The Texans have less carry over money than the Colts, as they have $4,935,924 in unused cap space from last year.