On Tuesday, an important deadline awaits: the end of the period during which NFL teams can place franchise and transition labels on their players for the 2021 season. And yet … there is … always no official word on what the NFL salary cap will be.
While the Kansas City Chiefs aren’t currently supposed to tag any of their players, it’s an understatement to say that it will be difficult for the rest of the league teams to make decisions about them without a clear idea of who they are. amount of money available.
NFL Network Ian Rapoport spoke about it on Monday morning.
A scenario to follow in the future: If the official salary cap number does not come today and soon, the NFL will have to extend the deadline for franchise players from Tuesday. This is a situation that several GMs are preparing for and which would slow down business a little further.
– Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 8, 2021
ESPN Dan Graziano reported that while the league and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) continue to wrestle over the final cap number, they are already discussing pushing back the tag deadline – and in turn, ESPN Field Yates noted that a year ago, the league ended up pushing it back until the last minute before the league’s year started.
Last year, the NFL extended the franchise tag deadline to 1 minute before the legal forgery window opened on March 16. The salary cap was officially set on March 15.
The teams suspected that could be the case again this year. https://t.co/UR7GPXiWgk
– Yates field (@FieldYates) March 8, 2021
However, the presence of the deadline for the beacons puts pressure on the negotiations. And whenever a final cap figure is announced, we should expect nothing less than heckling.
I just texted an NFL head coach about the upcoming cups and what he expects …
“It’s going to be a massacre next week across the league”
– Dianna Russini (@diannaESPN) March 3, 2021
While some teams have already started taking steps to get below the cap, other teams – including the Chiefs – have not announced any changes. A few weeks ago, chief executive Brett Veach said he and his experts had developed scenarios with caps ranging from the previously announced minimum of $ 175 million to $ 195 million. It is therefore reasonable to assume that chefs have plans ready to be executed regardless of the maximum number announced.
The most recent reports have indicated that the cap will likely drop to between $ 180 million and $ 185 million – meaning the Chiefs could fall between $ 18.5 million and $ 23.5 million. more than Hood. So wherever the cap finally comes, Chiefs will have to do a lot of things just to get under the cap – let alone decide on tenders for their six restricted free agents and four exclusive free agents. All of this will need to be done before the start of the league’s New Year a week starting Wednesday at 3 p.m. Arrowhead time.
And after that, the leaders should also have enough space to operate within free will.
So hang in there. In a few days – maybe even from Monday – things could start to move very quickly.
