The Broncos rolled over $8M in cap space

After ending the 2018 season with room to spare under the cap, Denver’s adding the surplus to 2019.

By Taylor Kothe@tkothe_nfl Feb 1, 2019, 4:30am MST

NFL: Denver Broncos at Los Angeles Chargers

Keeping your NFL team safely under the salary cap generally isn’t a nice and neat process. Most teams try to reserve a chunk of cap space in case of a mid-season trade or as a safety net for when injury forces the club to sign an additional player. And generally a good bit of that space gets used in one way or another. But there’s almost always a little- or a lot- left over.

And due to that, the CBA allows NFL teams to roll their unused salary cap over into the next season. The rollover amounts from the 2018 to 2019 seasons were announced yesterday, with the Broncos rolling over an even $8M of cap space.

Broncos are expected to be active in free agency and have elected to carry over all of their unused cap space from '18 into the '19 season. https://t.co/dJFCLOrqKi
— Jeff Legwold (@Jeff_Legwold) January 31, 2019

I’d call that $8M boost to Denver’s 2019 cap space a Goldilocks number. It’s not too much, nor is it too little. At 11th most in the NFL, it’s just right.

For example, the Rams cut things a bit close by carrying over just $466K, which is barely enough to sign a player to a bottom dollar deal. On the other end of the spectrum, the Browns and Colts are carrying over $56.5M and $49.1M respectively. Those amounts are so high that you can’t help but think that the Browns might have made the postseason, or the Colts may have gone deeper in it, if only they’d found a way to use some of that cap on a critical free agent or two.

The Broncos are rolling over plenty of cap compared to their division rivals, and yet without it being too much of a good thing: their $8,000,000 of carryover cap is more than twice the total rollover from the Chiefs, Chargers, and Raiders combined, which comes in at $3,615,000.

Among all 8 divisions, the teams of the NFC South are rolling over the least cap with a combined figure of $9.9M. Meanwhile, their counterparts in the AFC South are easily carrying over the most cap with a combined $105.1M.

As an example of just how useful the extra $8M of cap space could be, it could go a long way toward covering the 2019 cap hit of re-signing a guy like Matt Paradis, or be of similar use in offering a player like Chris Harris Jr a much-deserved extension.