Earlier today I posted the new salary cap figures for the NFL, including a note that the Jacksonville Jaguars had $40.6 mill in cap room. The Jaguars rolled over $30 million in cap space left over from the 2011 NFL season according to a report by Tania Ganguli of the Florida Times-Union.
A provision in the collective bargaining agreement allowed teams to move any leftover money from last year's salary cap into this year's. The Jaguars took advantage of that and elected to roll around $30 million into this year's cap, according to a source.
I asked Tania on twitter if this was in addition to the reported $40.6M in cap space for the Jaguars, and she said yes. I do not think however that this means the Jaguars simply have $70.6 million in cap space to spend in free agency. I'll offer a little bit of an explanation after the jump.
Another team that rolled over a lot of money from the 2011 season was the Kansas City Chiefs, but general manager Scott Pioli explained that the high looking cap number is just a facade until the new league year starts. "In our case, it was showing that we had $63 million in cap space," Pioli told 810 WHB's The Border Patrol. "The reality is that, that's true in that moment but, on the first day of the league year, the number of escalators and bonuses from last year will be netted out."
"So say for instance, what we have is $63 million in cap space showing with the league. However, there are $18 million in escalators that seven different players have earned -- contracts on some players that were done four years ago -- but even though they triggered, it hasn't been netted against the cap yet," Pioli continued.
"So we've got $18 million in escalators, another $5 million of incentives that were earned last season that will count against that, plus what we don't have is our restricted free agent tenders. What that number is, is approximately $25 million against the $63 million that isn't showing yet."
So, while the Jaguars "have" $70 million in cap room, they don't really have $70 million in cap room. Make sense?