Every year when the new salary cap is announced, headlines talking about the “massive” salary cap jump quickly follow with fan reactions that “now we can go sign <insert top end free agent>”.
The cap going up is good, but it won’t have the benefits allowing the drunken free agency spending most think. I’ve dug into this a few times before, most recently here, but wanted to update the view for 2025.
This year’s cap increase is continuing the post-Covid recovery…
I’m not sure I’ve seen a headline that spoke about the cap increase in percentage terms, it’s always “the cap is going up $x million”. Which is fine and useful, but you really have to look at the percentage change to know what the impacts will be.
We don’t have a final number but the league announced the 2025 cap will be between $277.5M and $281.5M, an increase of $22-26M or between an 8.6-10% increase.
This increase is in line with the cap increases that have occurred post-Covid when the cap shrank in 2021 for the first time in many years, catching a lot of teams exposed on some tough roster decisions.
Prior to Covid, the cap increased a bit over 6% a year. After dropping 8% in 2021, the cap has been making up ground, growing 10% a year from 2022-25. A lot of this is due to more and bigger TV deals as the league started signing more channels, but also re-gaining the prior trend that Covid disrupted.
With the cap, so goes free agency prices though…
Before you get excited that this is “free money” for your favorite team to go spend, know that free agency prices go up just as fast as the cap. If you were hoping to get Milton Williams back at $18-22M a year and now we have extra money for it, well Milt’s price probably just went up to $24-28M.
Here’s a chart showing this. The grey dashed line is the cap increase from 2016-2024. Free agent costs are split by tier (tier 1 are FAs over 5% of the cap, tier 2 are 2.5-5% of the cap, and tier 3 are free agents under 2.5% of the cap).
Couple of things to take away:
- Free agent prices follow the cap – as the cap goes up, free agency goes up roughly at the same rate
- Recently, the prices of the top free agents (tier 1) have gone up faster than the rest of free agency as well as the overall cap – since 2022, the cap has increased 23% but tier 1 free agents have doubled that, up 44%
Just to be clear, this is a great thing that free agency prices go up – the league makes a ton of money, I’m basically always on the player side, and given they are the product and how much they give to the game in what are very short careers for most, they deserve every penny. It just isn’t the windfall to teams that many think it will be.
Youth at premium positions gets paid
This should be obvious, but just to put some context to how much this is true:
- Last year the top contract was Atlanta’s massive overpay of Kirk Cousins
- The next 11 were all players under 30 years old and 7 of the top 20 were under 27 years old
- Only 3 free agents 30 or older made the top 20 in 2024, the prior two years there were 7 in both 2022 and 2023.
It’s buyer-beware on older free agents
Most older free agents are either QBs or on either of the lines, which are a bit safer bets than other positions. But even still, it’s a buyer-beware situation on older guys as risk is higher.
Last off-season, 30-year old Grover Stewart worked for Indy but Arik Armstead’s 3 year, $45M signing by the Jags may not be working out as he only played 47% of snaps and had good but noticeably down production.
In 2023, the 49ers set the DT market by signing 30-year old Javon Hargrave away from Philly to a 4-year, $84M deal ($40M guaranteed) – it worked in 2023 but he missed the majority of the 2024 season, playing only 104 snaps. The Falcons signing of
David Onyemata is a decent signing but production is way down in 2024.
This year’s young free agents
Expect top young players like Tee Higgins, Asante Samuel Jr., Osa Odighizuwa, Javon Holland, Malcolm Koonce, Drew Dalman, Talanoa Hufanga, Will Fries, Camryn Bynum, and our own Milton Williams to all exceed early contract projections with several of them showing up as top deals.
Are there new premium positions?
Everybody always thinks of receiver, pass rusher, tackle, and cornerback as the highly sought after and expensive premium positions. Most still are, but recently free agency has been shifting.
And the league may be catching up to what Howie values.
Defensive Tackle is the new king…
DT has grown massively the past couple of years, up 20% per year (3rd fastest growing position group) and is now the most expensive free agency position after QB and ahead of EDGE, averaging just over $20M AAV for top free agents.
Last year Christian Wilkins hit $27.5M AAV after Hargrave set the market the prior year at a $21M AAV. With the resurgence of stopping the run, interior pressure, and two-high defenses, expect this to continue.
This year Milton Williams, Osa Odighizuwa, Levi Onwuzurike, and BJ Hill all should exceed initial free agency projections and somebody like Milt could challenge for a new top DT contract.
And their counterparts, the interior OL…
Ahead of DTs as the second fastest inflating position group at 25% per year over the past 3 years are the guards and centers. With top contracts averaging $17M last year, teams may be learning that a great OL solves a lot of other issues.
This year expect free agents Trey Smith, Teven Jenkins, Will Fries, Mekhi Becton, and Drew Dalman to be bid up, especially with a bad OL draft class.
Cornerback and tackle no more?
Both positions may need their free agency premium positions card revoked, but it’s not because the positions aren’t valued – neither has seen good players hit free agency lately.
Cornerback free agent prices declined 16% last year, 11% annually over the past 3 years, and 5% over the past 5 years just as overall free agent prices have averaged a 9% increase.
It’s still a premium position but the league may have realized it’s almost impossible to get CBs outside the draft – teams keep their good corners and when they do hit free agency, they are often at the dreaded age wall for corners.
Don’t expect a reversal this year as aside from Asante Samuel Jr. and maybe Byron Murphy Jr., free agency is full of older or mid corners with a couple of “maybe they can turn around” guys like Kristian Fulton and Paulson Adebo. This is why the Eagles having Isaiah Rodgers is so important.
Another position that is down for similar reasons is OT with free agency prices basically flat over the past 3 and 5 year periods. Like CB, it’s not really about devaluation of the position, it’s a position where teams just aren’t letting their good OTs hit free agency.
I expect a reversal at OT this year if Ronnie Stanley, Cam Robinson, and Alric Jackson hit free agency – each will be highly sought out by OL-needy teams.
Click for detail on every position group
| 2024 Tier 1 FA AAV | 2024 Top FA AAV | 3-yr AAV Change | 1-yr AAV Change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| QB | 45.0 | 18.9 | 49.0% | 1.6% |
| IOL | 17.3 | 13.6 | 25.0% | 38.9% |
| EDGE | 18.3 | 12.1 | 6.4% | 30.7% |
| DT | 20.3 | 12.1 | 20.1% | -1.1% |
| WR | 16.3 | 11.5 | 4.1% | 14.3% |
| RB | – | 9.6 | 26.0% | 48.8% |
| OT | 15.0 | 9.5 | -0.7% | -26.1% |
| TE | – | 9.3 | 13.7% | 35.4% |
| SAF | 16.8 | 8.8 | -4.9% | 15.3% |
| CB | – | 8.2 | -10.9% | -15.9% |
| LB | 13.7 | 8.2 | -7.2% | 11.0% |
And the resurgence of the running back (which Howie may have initiated)…
This one deserves its own call-out as it may be another area where Howie was ahead of the league, maybe single-handedly driving the 2025 market (and draft).
Howie signing Saquon Barkley to a 3-year, $12.58M AAV deal – the 20th biggest free agent contract – shocked all of us, but maybe it’s bigger than that even. Yes, the Eagles won the Super Bowl and Saquon had one of the, if not the, best rushing seasons ever. But maybe more important is the resurgence of rushing in the NFL:
- 2024 saw the highest rushing rate since at least 2010, hitting 45% of offensive plays
- 2024 saw 12 teams average 4.5 yards per rush or more, double the 2023 amount
- EPA per rush, explosive rush rate, and yards per rush all reversed multi-year declines this year
For the 7-year period from 2017 to 2023 in the peak of the “running backs don’t matter” era, RBs rarely cracked the top 50 free agents with only the 49ers Jerick McKinnon landing at the 30th highest paid free agent in 2018.
Will Howie’s move, jumping out in front of a growing league swing back towards rushing, cause RB prices to again be bid up this year? Expect the two 1,000-yard rushers, Najee Harris (projected at $11-12M AAV) and Aaron Jones ($7M AAV), to exceed projections.
The Eagles are still projected at around $17M of free cap space in 2025, but grow that in 2026-27 with expected departures. They’ll have room to sign some guys and I fully expect them to prioritize and return Zack Baun. Mekhi Becton will have a market and I expect him to price himself out of Philly, but if he comes in below market to stay, he could return.
But as I’ve written on several times, they will be keeping cap space for the upcoming big extensions of Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith. And expect to see some of this “cap windfall” used to extend Jordan Davis and Cam Jurgens ahead of their final years.
Go Birds.
I have to say, I only recently found your site. I have read every word you have written in the past 6 months and love your style, insight and investigative explorations. Keep up the great work
Thanks, this means so much – really appreciate it. I only write what I find interesting and things I don’t see elsewhere.