The Philadelphia Eagles roster is set at the 90 man limit and at this point in the offseason there aren't many moves to be made, so I thought it would be useful to take a look at the Eagles cap situation heading into 2014.
According to Overthecap, the Eagles own $19,428,064 in cap space, which is good for the 6th highest total in the NFL. Only the Jaguars, Browns, Bengals, Jets, and Titans have more room to spend. Around the NFC East, the Dallas Cowboys have the 12th most space ($10,270,424) after an offseason of cutting costs. The New York Giants brought in a lot of new faces through free agency and rank 21st in cap room ($6,894,422). The Washington Redskins were also spenders in free agency and own the NFL's 4th least amount of cap room ($2,472,256).
As far as dead money goes, the Eagles rank near the middle of the pack with $9,453,783. A large chunk of that comes from the Eagles' release of DeSean Jackson ($6M). Had the Eagles not released Jackson, they would have been in the top five teams with the least dead money. Danny Watkins, Patrick Chung (if he doesn't make the Patriots roster), Jason Avant, Curtis Marsh, Jordan Poyer, David King, and Bryce Brown all account for some dead money.
It's good to see the Eagles have a lot of money to spend moving forward because they have a number of players who could be up for extensions following the 2014 season. One of those players includes quarterback Nick Foles. QBs tend to be very expensive and Foles won't come cheap. Brandon Boykin, Fletcher Cox, Mychal Kendricks, and Cedric Thornton are a few other names to consider.
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Another reason I wanted to post this cap update is because the great Eagles salary cap tracking site known as EaglesCap.com will be shutting down. EaglesCap, run by Bryce Johnston, was such a great resource for Eagles fans and it will truly be missed. The good news is that Johnston will be taking his services to Overthecap, which now provides the information that EaglesCap won't be anymore.
Still, it's a little sad to see a site like EC go because it represented the passion of the Eagles fan base. Johnston opened the site not with his own gain in mind but to provide a free and reliable service to the diehard Eagles fans who wanted to know more about the team's cap situation. Here's the message Johnston posted on his site:
Dear Users of the Site,
After 10 off-seasons of Eagles salary cap coverage, I am announcing at this time that I am no longer going to continue to maintain eaglescap.com. The Allen Barbre extension is the last contract that I am going to enter onto the site, and in August I am going to cancel the domain name. So if you would like to record any information for your own use, please do so shortly. I will be happy to continue answering questions via e-mail and Twitter.
I now strongly endorse overthecap.com as the most reliable and comprehensive source of Eagles contract and salary cap information. Overthecap.com provides such information for all 32 teams, and does so with tremendous accuracy and thoroughness, rendering sites like this one obsolete.
From this point forward I will be contributing occasionally to overthecap.com. I will write some Eagles-focused pieces, but primarily I will write about contract structure and cap management strategies in a non-team-specific sense. I will also remain active on Twitter.
I would like to thank all those who have used the site thoughout the years, e-mailed me with questions or suggestions, and interacted with me on Twitter. This decision is bittersweet, but I think the timing is right.
Bryce Johnston
Best wishes to Johnston moving forward. Follow him on Twitter: @eaglessalarycap.