This is my third post on in-season cap tracking. For this week’s update, I gathered data on 10/26.
As I posted last time, I gather data from both OverTheCap and Spotrac. One thing that has been interesting doing this in season is that these sites are often lagging behind the NFL transactions. In OTC’s case, they sometimes lag for multiple days. I have found Spotrac to be more accurate with roster moves. I can’t really say which of them is more accurate on actual cap dollar figures, but Spotrac tends to be slightly higher, so using Spotrac is not only more likely up to date on transactions but also a bit more conservative, which fits my purpose. So I am tending to use Spotrac data for these updates.
For in-season tracking, I am not withholding any budget for in-season injury replacements, trades, free agent signings, or practice squad activations. I will just track those things as they hit the cap during the season.
Here is a breakdown of cap expenses (based on Spotrac data):
Active contracts – $208,127,842
Practice squad – $3,817,000
Reserve/PUP – $495,000
Reserve/Injured – $32,699,154
Dead cap money – $36,308,467
Total cap expenses – $281,447,463
With those total expenses, that leaves the team with $2,511,431 in functional/available cap space, up from $2,091,481 in my week 6 report. I had mentioned in my previous post that each player who comes off IR would push another player off the active roster, generating cap savings for those pushed off the roster on a pro-rated basis based on the transaction dates. The return of Mack and Perryman from IR did this, but Ogbonnia went on IR, minimizing the cap space freed up so far.
More space will become free when Hampton and others return, but there will probably be more players who will go on IR, requiring injury replacements, and there will certainly be more roster churn and practice squad activations. So it is hard to assume any non-trivial cap space will ultimately become available.
Given the trade for Oweh, I am skeptical there will be another trade unless for a low salary player. Even then, their cap situation is tight enough that it could require restructuring a veteran contract.
I could see the team potentially offering to trade away WR Johnston if a WR needy team will offer a 3rd round pick. Unfortunately, I don’t think that would free any cap space. While the Chargers would not have to pay his remaining salary this season, saving $782K, they would fill his roster spot with another player who would require most of that space, and they would also incur a $1.83M cap hit for his remaining pro-rated signing bonus. I’m not sure if that would be split 50/50 on the 2025 and 2026 caps or if all of it would hit the 2026 cap.
Thoughts?
As you laid out, I think the cap space is not enough to make another impact move without sacrificing a quality player in return. I could see a low level move for maybe another RB like maybe Craig Reynolds from Detroit or Chris Rodriguez from Washington. Other than that, I don’t see much happening at the deadline. Maybe there could be some extension or restructure done before that to make room?