There was a time when the NFL salary cap was a useful tool, one used by team owners and general managers to explain to fans why their favorite players were cut, traded, or allowed to walk away in free agency.
Those days are long gone. The information is too readily available now, and teams can no longer hide behind an accounting system that is mostly fugazi.
The Cleveland Browns are a glowing example. Their current salary cap situation looks like a nightmare on paper. According to Over the Cap, GM Andrew Berry has a mere $3.2 million in space, with the start of free agency looming and his team holding 10 selections in the 2026 NFL Draft.
But the NFL’s annual salary cap number doesn’t stop teams from going after just about any available player they want. Cleveland spent over $321 million in total cash on player salaries in 2025 alone, per Spotrac. That year’s salary cap number? It was $279.2 million.
As long as owner Jimmy Haslam is giving the green light and cutting the checks, Berry’s well aware how to play the game. To his credit, he does it at an extremely high level.
When it comes to the salary cap, fans should really only be tracking two things: the guaranteed money, and the owner’s real cash spending. The Kansas City Chiefs just magically created $43.56 million in cap space by converting a portion of QB Patrick Mahomes’ base salary into a fully-guaranteed roster bonus. Cleveland will soon do something similar with Deshaun Watson’s bloated cap number. No one should be applauding the players for “doing their team a solid,” either, as these moves are procedural and don't result in any form of pay cut; in most cases, the player actually gets his money faster.
All checks eventually come due, of course, which is where the NFL salary cap gets real. Berry comes from the Howie Roseman school of thinking in terms of managing it all:
- Roster leaks should be plugged with sound drafting and player development, utilizing rookie-scale contracts that are pre-set and work in the team’s favor.
- The best players from that development pool should then be extended early to stay ahead of the market and avoid overpaying in free agency.
- Void and dummy years should be utilized to stock the roster with big-name veteran talent that help the team remain competitive annually.
- Dead-cap money (costs associated with a player no longer on the roster) is accepted as the cost of doing business, but those numbers can be managed in an NFL landscape where the annual cap number grows significantly each year.
The brutal reality for Berry and the Browns? They’re not the Eagles, and after going all-in on a perceived championship window with Watson and former head coach Kevin Stefanski, they’re currently stuck in the closest thing to “cap jail” that exists in the NFL.
Berry's currently playing the game with void years and dead money, despite having a roster ill-equipped to compete for championships and cover for those sunk costs.
Browns are paying the price for misjudged title window
During an appearance this week on the Cleveland Sports Show, Browns reporter Zac Jackson of The Athletic was blunt and succinct when asked about the team’s cap situation.
In a nutshell? Cleveland’s current mess boils down to a misjudged championship window that netted the team eight wins in 34 games.
“They’re going to create enough short-term flexibility,” Jackson said. “Everything they’ve done is backloading these contracts, which is why they are where they are. So in two weeks they’re going to have a number, almost $50 million, of free cap space. So they can make moves. That just doesn’t account for that they’ll still owe Watson $90 million. Some of these offensive linemen who are walking out the door this year will still have small dead-money hits next year.
Like you can’t trade Jerry Jeudy right now because you have too much in cap commitments to him. You’re going to pay that two years down the road. This is what they’ve done. So they’re going to have a number that says they’re flexible, and that’s true. But until they add some young, talented, cost-controlled players, they’re not going to be in a healthy cap situation. … They have spent ahead to make sure that they have flexibility … and it was all done for the last two years, in which they won eight games and saw their quarterback project flop.”
The harsh reality for the Browns right now is that 2026 free agency is largely irrelevant.
To Jackson’s point, the team will first have to balance out all their dead money (they’re still paying guys like Dalvin Tomlinson, Juan Thornhill and Ogbo Okoronkwo, by the way) with younger, cheaper players to improve their cap situation.
No, they’re not really in jail. That doesn’t exist with the NFL’s system. The pressure on Berry to strike gold for a second straight year with this upcoming draft class? Now that’s real.
There’s no path back to contention for the Browns without first raising their competitive floor, and while the cap is definitely whack, they won’t be able to buy their way out of this mess any time soon. They'll have to do it the old-fashioned way, and it starts with ripping off the Band-Aid, taking their medicine on the dead money, and replacing some fan-favorite veterans with the crapshoot that is the NFL draft.
What could go wrong?