The Best Team the NFL Salary Cap Can Buy This Season

The NFL is unique because, unlike other professional sports leagues in the United States, the NFL has a hard salary cap. When players get drafted into the NFL they start with a relatively cheap rookie contract for a few years which gives the team the financial flexibility to construct a really good team around them. In this scenario, I challenged myself to try and create the best current NFL team possible under the current NFL salary cap. To build this team I used each player’s 2024 salary cap hit. I only created a team that would start, so limited to no backups which is admittedly unrealistic. Lastly, many of this team’s players have new contracts that kick in next season, which is why many of their numbers are lower than you may think.

NFL Salary Cap: $255.4 million

Total Spending: $255.2 million

Total Spending for Offense: $134.3 million

QB: C.J. Stroud ($8.2 M)

RB: Christian McCaffrey ($14.1 M), Devon Achane ($1.3 M) 

FB: Kyle Juszczyk ($3.6 M)

WR: CeeDee Lamb ($17.9 M), Ja’Marr Chase ($9.8 M), Justin Jefferson ($8.6 M)

TE: George Kittle ($12.2 M), Sam LaPorta ($2.2 M)

OT: Trent Williams ($10.8 M), Penei Sewell ($8.2 M)

OG: Quenton Nelson ($25.2 M), Chris Lindstrom ($8.9 M)

C: Tyler Linderbaum ($3.3 M)

Total Spending for Defense: $120.9 million

DE: Myles Garrett ($25 M), Micah Parsons ($5.4 M)

DT: Dexter Lawrence ($14.6 M), Chris Jones ($7.4 M)

LB: Fred Warner ($13.8 M), Raquon Smith ($13.5 M), Patrick Queen ($6.1 M)

CB: Sauce Gardner ($9.1 M), Patrick Surtain ($6.7 M), Trent McDuffie ($3.8 M)

S: Kyle Hamilton (4.4 M) Jevon Holland ($4.3 M)

Special Teams: Justin Tucker ($5.8 M), Ryan Stonehouse ($1 M)

Although this team is unrealistic for an actual NFL franchise, it does highlight a few things. Firstly, getting cheap and valuable rookies out of the draft is a fantastic way to build a team and save money so the team can acquire or retain other high-level veteran players. Secondly, it is a good idea to pay big money but only to franchise-altering players. The players that have massive salary cap hits, but still find themselves on this list, are simply worth every penny that they make. This is why teams that have a lot of great players on rookie contracts, should take advantage of that time to try and win a Super Bowl. Once those players take a big chunk of the salary cap with a massive contract extension, it becomes difficult to build a contender without many positional holes.