According to an article on Nerd Wallet, the “50/30/20 rule” is highly recommended for a budgeting framework: 50% of your income for needs, 30% for wants, and 20% for savings and debt repayment. Should an NFL team aim to operate on a similar budget?
One could easily argue that they already do.
The 2023 salary cap is set at $224.8 million, which would mean that by the 50/30/20 rule, a team could spend $120 million just to strictly field a roster next season. By example, the team with the lowest active cap spending for 2023 is the Los Angeles Rams, putting $140 million towards the actual players on their roster and over 50% of that is going to just three players: Aaron Donald, Cooper Kupp, and Matthew Stafford.
A team would also need to allocate 20% of their budget to things like dead money for players they cut, bonuses, and cap savings to rollover into future seasons. The team with the most dead money is the Buccaneers at $75.3 million, with almost half of that going to Tom Brady. Conversely, the Cincinnati Bengals have less than $600,000 in dead money, which gives them even more money to spend on things they want.
By the 50/30/20 rule, a team would have $44 million on debt repayment and $66 million on things they want. In theory, a team like the Bengals might have $100 million to spend on what they want this year because of all the money they aren’t spending on debt repayment.
As such, Cincinnati has basically responded by holding onto players who are otherwise “overpaid”, such as running back Joe Mixon (who took a pay cut last week), offensive lineman Jonahn Williams, tackle La’el Collins, and defensive tackle D.J. Reader. They also added left tackle Orlando Brown, one of 2023’s top free agents, on a four-year, $64 million deal.
The 50/30/20 rule…could it apply to the Seahawks?
Whereas the Bengals still have $15 million in cap space and the Bears lead the NFL with $32 million in remaining cap space, Seattle is sixth from the bottom at $7.1 million and yet to reveal how they will complete the signings from their rookie class. At $18 million in dead money, the Seahawks are doing slightly better than the average and yet they haven’t completed their 2023 roster, won’t have any money savings for 2024, and they’re still waiting for a payoff from giving Jamal Adams the third-largest safety contract in the NFL…
The Seahawks are paying $44 million in 2023 cap space to the safety position—which, remember, is 20% of their budget—which is $14 million more than the team in SECOND place.
I may need to use top Google search results to find articles about how to properly do a budget, but even I can figure out that Seattle may have bitten off more than they can chew just to try and have the best safeties group in the NFL. And for what it’s worth, the team that is spending the least on safeties is the one that just represented the NFC in the Super Bowl.
Where the Seahawks are winning against the salary cap is clear: Seattle’s $22.5 million spent on offensive linemen in 2023 ranks as the cheapest in the NFL and that’s with high hopes for Charles Cross (24th among LT in 2023 salary cap), Abe Lucas (45th among RT), and reasonable expectations for Damien Lewis, Evan Brown, Olu Oluwatimi, and Phil Haynes to figure out the interior.
If you just estimate that the Seahawks are saving roughly $10 million this year at right tackle from what Lucas could potentially be making, plus another $10 million at left tackle for Cross, and maybe $3.3 million at each interior spot, then you could make a theoretical argument that “Seattle is getting a $52.5 million offensive line for $22.5 million.”
If the Seahawks get a $50 million offensive line in value, that’s like getting a top-10 OL for less than half the price!
For today’s bonus article, I am going to compare other 2023 cap savings on the roster against players in the NFL who they absolutely should not be making less money than this (or any) season. No, what a player counts against the salary cap is NOT their take home pay for the season and it is not necessarily always representative of how the team or the league values them—it could be their “cheap year” in order to pay off an “expensive year” down the road.
However, it’s still interesting to consider that there could ever be a system of payments that ever has Tim Patrick over Tyler Lockett. Someone needs to direct the Denver Broncos to NerdWallet.com.