Two important NFL updates

Revised rules for roster cuts

Personally, I’ve never understood the staged cutdowns. I thought it was a good thing when, just a few years ago, the league went to a single cut down day following the end of the final preseason game. At least this staged system is sensible, reducing rosters by 5 players after the first game and another 5 following the second.

The final cut down here is on 31 August; the first game of the NFL season will be played on Thursday, 9 September. The Washington Football Team opens its season at home against the Chargers on Sunday, 12 September.

Agreement on 2022 salary cap

Here’s the headline post on a thread:

Here’s the text of the thread in full:

Per source, the NFL and the NFLPA have agreed to a salary cap ceiling of $208.2 million for the 2022 season. If it gets there, that would be a 14 percent increase over the 2021 cap of $182.5 million.

If revenues call for a cap higher than $208.2M in 2022, excess revenues would be used to pay back the $17 million in player benefits that were canceled as a result of the COVID-19 amendments the league and union agreed to last July.

Originally, the July 2020 agreement said the $17 million in canceled 2020 player benefits would be paid back after 2023. The new agreement allows those to be paid back sooner IF revenues call for a cap higher than the agreed-upon $208.2 million in 2022.

The 2019 cap (pre-COVID) was $198.2M per team, and at the time the cap was growing by about $10M per year. At that pace, the 2022 cap would have been about $218M. So $208.2M still isn’t “caught up.” But it would exceed the expectations of many who feared cap might stay flat.

John Keim, in a tweet of his own, pointed out that the Washington Football Team has the 8th largest amount of projected cap space for 2022, and that the team has the most projected ‘22 cap space in the NFC by far, $60m ahead of the Giants, who are the next-closest.