The Jacksonville Jaguars face cap challenges, but a big salary cap jump offers crucial financial flexibility as free agency nears.
The NFL informed teams on Friday the projected salary cap for 2026 has jumped to somewhere between $301. 2 million and $305.7 million.
That more than $22-million year-to-year difference is smaller than the nearly $24 million increase each team's cap ceiling rose from 2024 to 2025 -- from $255.4 million to $279.2 million.
But the 2026 increase marks the third consecutive year each NFL team's salary cap have grown by at least $22 million.
Still, the boost NFL teams will get to help bolster their rosters; provide contract-structure flexibility to push some cap spending into the future; or cover their cap debts is significant, and reflects the league's continued popularity and profitability.
What do the Jaguars stand to gain with the cap increasing to, say, $303 million? According to Spotrac, Jacksonville will start the new league year $9,166,552 in the hole, as the team will take advantage of the Top 51 Rule until August, when it's time to cut 90-man offseason rosters to the final 53 players that will begin the 2026 season. (If the team had to account for their current 60 active players, the Jags would be looking at -$16,246,552 in cap space.)
Jacksonville, at No. 24 among 32 teams, joins 11 other NFL teams that will start 2026 in negative territory.
The Jaguars rank third in the NFL behind the New Orleans Saints and the New York Jets in dead cap -- with just over $42 million, significantly reducing (or negating) cap space for the team's active-player salaries (as they are currently structured) and limiting Jacksonville's options for bringing in new players.
The bump the team will get from the rising salary cap can help ease some of what the organization is still on the hook for with contract guarantees and bonus commitments.
That easing will also be helped as the Jaguars' finance office busies itself working on proposals for restructuring player contracts that may offer some wiggle room for negotiation, while other team officials are figuring out which free agents on the team are must-keeps, which the Jags can survive without, and what their options are for finding fresh talent in positions of need as free agency's opening on March 11 nears.
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