Entering Friday, the Buffalo Bills had a rapidly-decreasing chunk of money to sign free agents on Monday. That changed when the team traded Tyrod Taylor and opened up a considerable amount of salary cap space in the process.
Releasing Taylor clears $10.44 million from Buffalo’s salary cap figure and saves Buffalo $16 million in real money. What had been roughly $144.5 million in Top-51 salary cap commitments went down to $134.54 by subtracting Taylor and adding the next player. (In the offseason, only top 51 players count against the cap so by removing Taylor’s salary, the next one in line now counts where it didn’t before.)
Buffalo will also need to save $4.8 million in salary cap space to sign their rookie class. The rookies will count about $9.2 million in cap space but will displace nine players at the bottom of the roster in that top-51 metric.
With the NFL’s salary cap set at $177.2 million, Buffalo was also able to roll over $11.6 million in additional salary cap space from the 2017 season, giving them a salary cap limit of $188.8 million.
*It should also be noted that these figures do not include information on the signings of Chris Ivory or Owa Odighizuwa, since those numbers have not yet been released.
NFL salary cap: $177.2 million
Bills 2017 rollover: $11.6 million
Bills 2018 adjusted salary cap: $188.8 million
Bills Top-51 contracts*: $126.8 million
Bills 2018 dead money: $26.3 million
Bills 2018 adjusted cap accounted for*: $153.2 million
Bills salary cap space right now: $35.6 million*
Anticipated 2018 rookie net cap cost: $4.8 million
Bills adjusted salary cap space entering free agency: $30.8 million*