There’s a segment of NFL fans that refuse to believe that the salary cap can be easily manipulated. They are thoroughly convinced that the NFL salary cap significantly and legitimately handicaps teams from acquiring players.

This segment of NFL fans is convinced that NFL teams would love to acquire more talent, but the salary cap is just simply too difficult to get around. I’ve talked to these types of fans, regularly, on social media. And no matter what facts you throw at them, they simply refuse to change their minds.

In defending his point, one person on X recently said that no team could ever have the highest paid player at most positions. Here was his post:

 

My response was simply this:

 

I’m convinced that a team could, in theory, put together a great super roster and have most of their starters be the highest paid players at their respective positions. And I’m convinced that the NFL salary cap would not impede them from doing this.

My goal in this article is to accomplish what that dude on social media proclaimed I could not accomplish. I want to build a team that has the highest paid player at each position.

For this project, I will be fictionally offering players a contract that makes them the highest paid player in the NFL at his position, based on annual average value (AAV) of the contract. My goal is to try to keep this entire team together for at least three seasons (maybe even four).

These fictional contracts being offered have structures that are similar to what these players currently have in their current real NFL contracts. For this exercise, we’re also assuming that each player is fully healthy at the time that they sign the deal.

Here’s the list of contracts that I would give each player that would make them the highest paid player at their respective position.

 

Proposed Offensive Contracts

 

Proposed Defensive Contracts

 

Super Team’s Salary Cap Status

*Projections for 2027–2029 from Spotrac.com. They have not published projections for 2030 and beyond.

 

The Super Team is Possible

Under my fictional scenarios, you can see that in the 2026, 2027, and 2028 seasons I still have enough salary cap space to sign my backup players that will fill out the roster.

This super team that I’ve built herein would not have great depth, but if this collection of players were to stay healthy, they would win every game by three touchdowns and would win the Super Bowl.

In the fourth season, 2029, this team would be slated to be over the salary cap by a lot. However, in the 2029 season, there would be several players that would be eligible for restructuring that could potentially push salary cap charges into the future. Players like DeVonta Smith, Tyler Smith, Trey Smith, Penei Sewell, Micah Parsons, and Kenny Clark would all have contracts that would be relatively easy to restructure, pushing monies into 2030–2034.

Also, in 2029 and 2030, our super team could look to release just a few players and start over with a few new players—we’d give those new players big contracts, making them the highest paid players at their respective positions and we’d fit those guys under the salary cap by pushing significant chunks of their salary cap charges into 2033, 2034, and 2035.

Furthermore, it is important to note that the NFL is currently expected to opt out of the current TV contracts before the 2029 season. TV contracts are the primary source of revenue for the NFL and those agreements greatly impact salary cap calculations. It is highly likely that the salary cap in 2029 and 2030 will end up being significantly higher than the current projections.

 

Conclusion

The primary goal in this study was to keep this team together for at least three seasons. We have accomplished that. And, with a little more creativity along the way, it would not be crazy to keep most of this team together for at least four seasons.

This article proves that the NFL salary cap is not nearly as limiting as some fans and media types would like you to believe. Many NFL fans are convinced that the NFL salary cap makes it impossible for teams to acquire this amount of talent, but that is simply not the case.

However, it is important in the note, that there are indeed other factors that may impede talent acquisition at times. Just because the NFL salary cap can be easily manipulated doesn’t guarantee a team will have the ability to acquire the talent. Factors such as personalities, leadership styles, state taxes, quality of life in the city, quality of practice facilities, coaching staffs, schemes, and egos are all factors in the mix when a player is determining what team he intends to play for.

The point of this article was, simply, to prove that the NFL salary cap, in and of itself, does not necessarily impede an NFL team’s ability to acquire a boatload of talent. If a team can convince a free agent player to come join their squad, then there will always be a mechanism to figure it out when it comes to the NFL salary cap.