The Philadelphia Eagles have the most future salary cap debt in the National Football League (and it isn't even close) as general manager Howie Roseman continues to try and build a winner in the short term.
According to NFL analyst Chris Kouffman, Philly has over $300 million in future salary cap debt, which is money that the team has already paid out but hasn't had added to the books yet in terms of the salary cap.
To get an idea of just how much that is, it's well north of the 2024 salary cap figure of $255.4 million by itself. No other team in the NFL is over $300 million like the Eagles are, and the next closest team, the New Orleans Saints, has around $40 million less in future debt.
Helping the Eagles absorb this money down the road is the fact that the salary cap routinely goes up a significant amount each year.
I first tweeted this NFL salary cap indebtedness landscape over a month ago and it got crickets for engagement but I promise you this is actually a very cool chart and an important measurement you won't find anywhere else on the internet lol. pic.twitter.com/Manr8KvC54
— Chris Kouffman (@ckparrot) July 13, 2024
After going down to $182.5 million in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NFL salary cap rose almost $26 million in 2022, $16.6 million in 2023 and then a whopping $30.6 million in 2024.
Even still, that regular increase won't be enough to absorb all of this money that the Eagles will be on the hook for in the next handful of years, so Roseman will have to get creative to avoid it impacting his ability to spend.
The good news is, the Eagles general manager has proven time and time again that he can get creative to make things work, which is why Philly has that total in the first place.
This is what going for it now looks like and taking that route can make things very difficult in the years ahead. However, none of that will really matter if the Eagles can deliver on the Super Bowl window the team is currently in.
