The NFL is in the off-season. Right now, the focus is less on current sporting success and more on contracts, salaries, and team compositions. A constant companion in all of this is the salary cap, which every team must adhere to.

Since 1994, there has been a salary cap in the NFL every season. It is intended to prevent the financial resources of the owners from becoming an advantage or disadvantage and to ensure that all teams have the same salary expenses.

Once set at $34.6 million, it stands at $279.2 million for the coming season. A team cannot spend more than this on salaries. It is also stipulated that at least 90 percent of this sum must be used.

There are tricks and ways for franchises to divide their salary expenses and have more money available for the respective season. An important term is the “cap hit.” It defines how much money from a contract is counted toward the cap for the season.

NFL: Contracts are increasingly being restructured

These include signing bonuses, performance-related bonuses, and base salary. However, long-term contracts are often used to minimize the portion of a player’s total contract that is counted against the salary cap for the current season.

The “hit” is kept as small as possible with automatically increasing caps that are intended to cover the amounts in the future.

Bonuses totaling US$50 million, for example, are spread over five years and burden a team’s cap with significantly less money. One example is Patrick Mahomes’ long-term contract until 2031, which he signed in 2020 and has already restructured three times since then.

This goes hand in hand with so-called “void years.” These are years in a player’s contract during which he will not play for the franchise. They are considered placeholders for a split signing bonus that the player receives.

These added years create “dead money” because money is counted toward the cap for a player who is no longer on the team. “Void years” therefore give teams the theoretical possibility of extending their title window in the future through placeholders.

NFL teams with entire departments dedicated to circumventing the rule

Another trick can be used through restructuring. In some cases, not only are bonuses spread over several years, but fixed salaries are also converted into bonuses.

This allows the salary to be pushed into the “void years” or at least split up, depending on how much money the team needs to save for the current cap.

This is a trend that is clearly evident throughout the league. Players are demonstrably earning more money, but are placing significantly less strain on the salary cap.

Some franchises have hired several lawyers and managers to calculate these savings in order to gain as much advantage as possible.

More teams are following the trend and making it the rule

An overview from 2013 by “Sharp Football Analysis” shows that there has been a significant increase in the number of teams paying their players more money than the salary cap actually allows.

Roger Goodell doesn’t like the integrity of the salary cap system

there’s a strong trend to creatively raise contracts in cash but down in cap hit (void years etc) & hurts some teams

85% of NFL now cash ☻ cap

teams exceeding cap by ☻10% in cash rose from 5 to over half the NFL pic.twitter.com/kit7yRmdZg

— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) May 26, 2025

In 2016, 16 teams were over the limit, representing exactly 50 percent of the league. In the 2024 season, the number rose to 27 of the 32 teams that actually spent more than the permitted $255.4 million. Officially, none of these teams violated the salary cap.

Of the 27 teams, 16 spent more than ten percent more than the salary cap allowed. Their spending was therefore over $280.9 million. In 2013, only six teams exceeded the cap by this amount.

The trend is becoming the rule, the exception the norm.

Salary spending rises annually

There was a clear break between the 2020 and 2021 seasons when the cap was lowered due to the coronavirus pandemic. The trend shows that from this point on, it became necessary for more franchises to circumvent the cap in the manner described above.

For only the second time since its introduction, teams had to get by with less salary expenditure than in the previous year.

The total fell from US$198.2 million (2020) to US$182.5 million (2021). More teams began to restructure their superstars’ big contracts in particular.

This trend has since become established and is circumventing the salary cap year after year.