The future of the Bengals salary cap

[WeezyBengal]

Let's take a look out and see where the Bengals stand after NEXT season (the 2025 season heading INTO the 2026 season).

As of RIGHT NOW, the Bengals will have THREE guys signed that are NOT on their rookie contract.

1. Joe Burrow (48M cap hit)
2. Orlando Brown Jr. (20M cap hit)
3. Logan Wilson (9M cap hit)

After that, the player signed making the most money is Myles Murphy at 4M dollars. The projected cap for 2026 is 350M and the Bengals are on the hook for 93M in active contracts leaving them with around 260M in cap space.

YES, I know the Bengals are going to sign players between now and then. Jamar Chase and CTB mainly. That being said, those contracts will most likely not be more than 40M combined which will still leave more than 200M in cap space.

So, my point is this...the roster drop off after next year is about to be HUGE. This team is going to look completely different, and it can choose to go in WHATEVER direction it wants. They want to sign Chris Jones this off-season and back load the contract? Go for it. They want to sign Tee? Go for it.

They aren't bogged down by any bad, long-term contracts. They aren't kicking the can down the road with void years on players contracts like other teams.

They are in an amazing place with the cap and roster construction. They HAVE the money, cap room, and flexibility to sign who they want. It's up to them to go in the right direction with their signings.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-28-2024, 03:49 PM)WeezyBengal Wrote: Let's take a look out and see where the Bengals stand after NEXT season (the 2025 season heading INTO the 2026 season).

As of RIGHT NOW, the Bengals will have THREE guys signed that are NOT on their rookie contract.

1. Joe Burrow (48M cap hit)
2. Orlando Brown Jr. (20M cap hit)
3. Logan Wilson (9M cap hit)

After that, the player signed making the most money is Myles Murphy at 4M dollars. The projected cap for 2026 is 447M and the Bengals are on the hook for 93M in active contracts leaving them with around 350M in cap space.

YES, I know the Bengals are going to sign players between now and then. Jamar Chase and CTB mainly. That being said, those contracts will most likely not be more than 40M combined which will still leave more than 300M in cap space.

So, my point is this...the roster drop off after next year is about to be HUGE. This team is going to look completely different, and it can choose to go in WHATEVER direction it wants. They want to sign Chris Jones this off-season and back load the contract? Go for it. They want to sign Tee? Go for it.

They aren't bogged down by any bad, long-term contracts. They aren't kicking the can down the road with void years on players contracts like other teams.

They are in an amazing place with the cap and roster construction. They HAVE the money, cap room, and flexibility to sign who they want. It's up to them to go in the right direction with their signings.

I'm 99.99% sure that's not accurate. That'd be ~$95m cap increases in both '25 and '26.

EDIT: Yup, looking at it that's with the Bengals having over $155m in rollover cap space heading into '26, because we haven't spent any cap space yet this offseason and without us spending any of our cap space in 2025 either. Lol.... the projected salary cap for the NFL in 2026 is $292.4m right now, and we seem to normally roll over $5-10m.

[WeezyBengal]

(02-28-2024, 03:52 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I'm 99.99% sure that's not accurate. That'd be ~$95m cap increases in both '25 and '26.

EDIT: Yup, looking at it that's with the Bengals having over $155m in rollover cap space heading into '26, because we haven't spent any cap space yet this offseason and without us spending any of our cap space in 2025 either. Lol.... the projected cap in 2026 is $292.4m right now.

You are correct. I just edited it to the amount without the rollover. 

The point stands though, they don't have any active players signed and have the cash and cap room to go after whoever they want to build the future of this team. 

[Lucius Cincinnatus]

Yeah, this all seems a bit silly to do at this point, especially trying to roll over cap space and not knowing about our current extensions/free agent signings. We will have plenty of money.

[WeezyBengal]

(02-28-2024, 03:59 PM)Lucius Cincinnatus Wrote: Yeah, this all seems a bit silly to do at this point, especially trying to roll over cap space and not knowing about our current extensions/free agent signings.  We will have plenty of money.

It's not silly if you look at others teams and the messes they have with their future cap space and then compare it to the Bengals. 

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-28-2024, 03:58 PM)WeezyBengal Wrote: You are correct. I just edited it to the amount without the rollover. 

The point stands though, they don't have any active players signed and have the cash and cap room to go after whoever they want to build the future of this team. 

Most teams don't have a lot of active players signed for '26. The Bengals are listed as 14th in cap space for '26, nearly right in the middle of the pack. Including rookies only 9 teams have more than 16 guys signed for '26 and only 1 with more than 23 guys. 3 years is a long time, that's enough for most teams to have a big reset if they choose to.

You changed your post and then proceeded to still have a vastly inflated number. You still have it at $350m as the projected cap, but it's $292.4m. After the $90m that's $202.4m not $260m. Even if you want to add in $5-10m for rollover, that's still way off.

[Lucius Cincinnatus]

(02-28-2024, 04:01 PM)WeezyBengal Wrote: It's not silly if you look at others teams and the messes they have with their future cap space and then compare it to the Bengals. 

And things change quickly. 

[*Synric*]

(02-28-2024, 04:07 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Most teams don't have a lot of active players signed for '26. The Bengals are listed as 14th in cap space for '26, nearly right in the middle of the pack. Including rookies only 9 teams have more than 16 guys signed for '26 and only 1 with more than 23 guys. 3 years is a long time, that's enough for most teams to have a big reset if they choose to.

You changed your post and then proceeded to still have a vastly inflated number. You still have it at $350m as the projected cap, but it's $292.4m. After the $90m that's $202.4m not $260m. Even if you want to add in $5-10m for rollover, that's still way off.

I know Spotrac and Over the Cap have their Salary Cap estimates for next year but most people discussing it expects another massive jump. Really they expected 2025 to be the first big bump in the cap but the TV deal revenue was even more than they expected.