2016 NFL Salary Cap Projected to Increase Significantly

Of course your favorite nonprofit has made bunches and bunches of money this year. As a result, the NFL salary cap is expected to increase next season. The cap is calculated by splitting a league-wide pot based on ticket sales, revenue from luxury suites, local and national broadcasting royalties, concessions, local advertising, stadium leasing, and merchandise, and then it is divided on a per player basis. After this some entry level accounting is done, and BAM, you get the salary cap. For all the grisly details, click here.

The cap jumped from $123 million in 2013 to $133 million in 2014 to $143.28 million this year. Next year, it is expected to reach even greater heights as Jason Cole reports:

#NFL GMs and cap guys have been told by league office to expect the 2016 cap to come in between $147M to $155M.

— Jason Cole (@JasonColeBR) December 1, 2015

Another increase was expected, but $12 million is an entire extra free agent acquisition for every team in the league. This is especially interesting for your Houston Texans. They have a projected cap figure of $122,880,128.00 before resigning anyone like the following players who are due to be free agents at the end of the year:

via Over The Cap

To summarize, the salary cap is going up somewhere between $4 and $12 million next year, the Texans are projected to be about $18 million below that mark, and they have multiple flexible contracts they can erase to create even more cap space.

Let the speculation begin.

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