Based on the television viewership numbers, the National Football League has never been more popular than it is right now.
During the game's peak, more than 137 million people tuned in to watch the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. Year over year, average viewership rose 3.2% over last season's record-setting level.
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Interest in the game has expanded past the product on the field as, thanks to social media, athletes have become bigger celebrities in their own right.
Some NFLers have even found success as podcasters and media personalities.
But while cashing in on their celebrity status is a nice perk, the main source of income for most NFL athletes is overwhelmingly the league checks they receive every week throughout the season.
Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders are expected to be very busy in free agency this offseason. Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images
Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images
What is the NFL salary cap, and how much money players can make
While the NFL is as American as apple pie and capitalism, the league's financial structure represents socialism at its best.
Between revenue sharing, unified media rights deals, and the salary cap, the NFL understands what can be accomplished when every team works together.
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The NFL salary cap limits how much money each team can spend on on-the-field talent. The idea is that just because the Dallas Cowboys are valued at double what the Buffalo Bills are worth, the Cowboys cannot buy a better team every year.
At the start of March, less than two weeks from free agency, the NFL and NFL Players Association, the union representing the NFL's 4,000+ athletes, announced that they had agreed to a $279.2 million salary cap for each club.
The new record-high number is $23.8 million above 2024, over $100 million above the salary cap in 2018, and more than $200 million above 2005.
The cap rises in conjunction with the revenue the league takes in. However, the 11-year collective bargaining agreement the league and players signed, which began in 2020, caps the money players are entitled to at 48% of football-related revenue.
For perspective, the NFL, according to some estimates, generated more than $20 billion in revenue in 2024.
NFL Free Agency 2025: How guaranteed money, signing bonuses and contract restructuring works
The NFL's 64-hour "legal tampering period"-where teams can officially begin negotiating with free agents (players who aren't under contract with a team)-begins on March 10.
The official NFL free agency period starts at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday, March 12.
Big numbers will be bandied about once free agency starts: player "X" signs a 5-year deal for $125 million.
But there are two finer print numbers that matter the most for players and teams: guaranteed money and signing bonus money.
For players and their agents, the guaranteed money matters more than the average annual value of the deal, as often the player is either cut or released before the contract is fulfilled.
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Since the NFL is the only major North American sports league without fully guaranteed contracts, negotiating the guaranteed money is paramount.
The other key number is the signing bonus money. The signing bonus is also completely guaranteed, and often, a large portion of it is due to the player the moment they sign the contract.
However, the signing bonus is also important for the team, granting them flexibility as the contract ages.
The NFL explains how a team can use accounting magic to create cap space in the near term using signing bonus money.
To see how the Rams created cap relief in the 2021 offseason, we can examine what transpired with DT Aaron Donald. Donald had a base salary of $19.9 million in 2021. Los Angeles dropped his base salary to $1.9 million in 2021. The Rams converted the remaining $18 million into a signing bonus, which allowed them to spread that money over the remaining four years of the contract ($4.5 million per season). This allowed the Rams to reduce his cap hit from $27.9 million to $14.4 million in 2021, creating $13.5 million in cap space. However, this restructure increased his cap hits from 2022 to 2024 by $4.5 million each season: from $22.3 million to $26.8 million in 2022 and $19.0 million to $23.5 million in 2023. (His cap hit included an additional $4.5 million in 2024 as well, but with his base salary lowering that year from $16.75 million to $14 million, his cap hit only jumped from $21.8 million to $23.5 million.)
Teams can convert money on the deal into a signing bonus, the total of which can be spread over multiple years of the contract. This strategy effectively kicks the can down the road by shifting the full weight of the contract's salary cap burden into the future.
NFL free agency salary cap and the dead money cap
The salary cap forces teams to be fiscally responsible and adds an extra layer of strategy off the field.
Fiscally responsible teams like the New England Patriots and Washington Commanders have a ton of money to spend before reaching their cap limit ($125.8 million and $78.5 million, respectively). In comparison, other teams like the New Orleans Saints and Buffalo Bills don't have much wiggle room ($38.9 million over and $8.4 million over, respectively).
According to Spotrac, the 32 NFL teams will have $1.27 billion to spend on free agents in the coming weeks and months.
Dead cap money refers to money that counts against a team's salary cap for a player who is no longer on the team. The easiest way to accrue dead money is by using the maneuver the Rams did with Aaron Donald's contract.
This year, the San Francisco 49ers have the most dead cap money, with $66 million of the space taken up by players no longer with the team.
World champions Philadelphia Eagles have the second most dead cap money at $59.9 million, with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Cleveland Browns following in the third and fourth spots.
The New Orleans Saints, who also have the biggest salary cap deficit, have the fifth-most dead cap money, at $50.7 million.
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This story was originally published March 7, 2025 at 7:03 PM.