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It’s time for the Houston Texans to get busy building the roster for the 2017 NFL season, and that all starts with determining how much cap space they have to work with to retain and bring in great talent.
The available cap space is affected by several sources and actions, including:
- The league choosing to increase the cap for all teams in the league.
- Existing contracts for retained players with no change to terms.
- Carryover of “dead money” from contracts for players waived or traded away.
- New contracts, extensions and renegotiated contracts.
- Rollover funds from the prior year.
According to Over The Cap, the Texans will have $25.7 million in available cap space for 2017. The overall cap space formula, according to overthecap.com, is:
Cap Space = (Team Salary Cap) – (Active Cap Spending) – (Dead Money)
Team Salary Cap = (Base Salary Cap) + (Carryover) +/- (Adjustments)
You may notice that the formula includes a carryover of unused cap space from 2016. That’s right. Any money not spent in one season can be carried over to the next season.
The NFLPA Twitter account provided this graphic that shows their estimation of carryover cap space from 2016 into 2017 for all NFL teams:
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Stay tuned here at Battle Red Blog. We’ll keep you updated on any and all changes that affect the available fuel known as “cap space” to load the roster for the 2017 season.