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NFL Sets Salary Cap at "Record-high" $279.2 Million; Giants' Cap Space Updated

Originally posted on New York Giants on SI
By Patricia Traina | Last updated Feb 27, 2025 1:38 PM ET

The 2025 NFL salary cap is officially set at a record-high $279.2 million per club, well beyond the $272.5 million initially projected by Over the Cap.

As noted in a memo circulated to clubs a couple of weeks ago, the huge jump in the per-team cap is due to “the fact that the 2024 Player Cost and Salary Cap amount was reduced by $10 million per club due to a $9 million smoothing adjustment and an incremental $1 million being added to Performance-Based Pay.”

This increase is great news for the New York Giants. Using the initial $272.5 million figure, the Giants were projected to have $41,390,069 of total salary cap space (14th most in the league), of which $31,752,449 is considered effective cap space.

Now that this new range has been established, the Giants, who per OTC already have $232,281,979 in total cap liabilities on the books for 2025, will have an estimated $46.918 million in cap space, even with $27.299 million of dead money ($22.2 million of that coming from the Daniel Jones contract) on their books.

Given their available space, the Giants don’t have to make any cap cuts, but that doesn’t mean they won’t.

With a deep defensive lineman draft class staring them in the face, the Giants could trim defensive lineman Rakeem Nunez-Roches ($5.033 million cap hit) from their roster. Nunez-Roches, who is in the final year of his contract with the Giants would yield a $3.6 million savings if he is cut.

The Giants can also wait to restructure existing contracts, which is beneficial. General manager Joe Schoen has said in the past that he’s not a big fan of kicking the can down the road, as restructured deals always lead to more dead money in the end if the player does not reach the end of his contract.

That said, the salary cap is projected to keep rising. If, as projected, the league goes to an 18-game regular season schedule in the next few years and if Netflix gets in on the broadcasting rights, the cap can easily push past $300 million by then.