Round and round the 2021 NFL salary cap number speculation goes and where it’ll stop, nobody knows. Well, maybe a few people might.
Super Bowl Sunday has finally arrived and that means we’ll have a lot of different reports throughout the day not only about the NFL’s big game, but league-related items as well. Sunday morning, Adam Schefter of ESPN even passed along a little tidbit on Twitter concerning the 2021 salary cap number. As you can see below, Schefter reports that league sources now believe that the 2021 NFL Salary cap number will ultimately be roughly $180-$181 million.
Here’s to hoping that Schefter’s report is wrong and that the report from Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network is right. Pelissero, in case you missed it, reported a few days ago that there’s growing belief that the 2021 salary cap number could be $185 million or more.
For whatever its worth, and it’s worth a lot, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said on Thursday he thinks the 2021 NFL salary cap number will comes in higher than the $175 million floor.
With the start of the 2021 league year now five and a half weeks away, we’ll likely find out what the exact salary cap number is for next season in roughly four weeks. At the very least, we’ll not know what the exact number is until after March begins.
Entering the weekend, the Pittsburgh Steelers are roughly $31 million over a cap number of $175 million, which the NFL and NFLPA collectively bargained as low floor amount for the 2021. That number takes into account the retirement of tight end Vance McDonald and the Steelers rolling over nearly $5 million in unused cap space from the 2020 season.
