Most NFL fans are aware of how their favorite team feels about the pay cap.
This season, the NFL raised the wage cap, which ought to make teams more competitive when it comes to signing players.
While this number is widely known, there is another nuance to the cap that might be lesser known, which is void years. Void years, at least in the NFL, allow teams to spend more money in the present time by pushing out contracts to future seasons.
This can be a great thing at the time, especially if a team can win the Super Bowl, but it can come back to bite them. As data analyst Cooper Davis has recently highlighted on Twitter, the Cleveland Browns have the second-highest amount of salary cap space stored in void years of any team in the NFL.
Regretfully, the Browns’ dead cap space—which is expected to exceed $200 million—makes it more difficult for them to improve this club in the long run.
A club like the Browns, who suffered mightily at times during the 2023 season, will require all the assistance they can receive in 2024 and beyond.
It will be intriguing to watch how the squad develops and what changes they make in preparation for the next season in an effort to get better.
This squad was exposed by Deshaun Watson’s injury last season, and even though Joe Flacco guided them to the postseason, if the club returns to its previous ways, they may have a difficult time making it back to the postseason this year.
