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After the Cleveland Browns had made a bunch of trades last Friday and Saturday, we estimated they had $83.55 million in available cap space. That number changes now due to the following additions and subtractions:
- Signing RT Chris Hubbard, OT Donald Stephenson, RB Carlos Hyde, TE Darren Fells, CB Terrance Mitchell, and CB T.J. Carrie
- The retirement of LT Joe Thomas
In the table below, we list the Top 51 cap hits, since only the highest 51 cap hits are included in the available cap space calculation at this time of the year. The full calculations of how much cap space we have left are all the way at the bottom, below the table.
Browns’ Top 51 Cap Hits
| Player | 2018 Cap Hit |
|---|---|
| Player | 2018 Cap Hit |
| Tyrod Taylor | $16,000,000 |
| Jarvis Landry | $15,982,000 |
| Kevin Zeitler | $12,400,000 |
| Jamie Collins | $12,150,000 |
| Myles Garrett | $6,911,876 |
| J.C. Tretter | $6,750,000 |
| Christian Kirksey | $6,200,000 |
| Joel Bitonio | $6,000,000 |
| Carlos Hyde | $6,000,000 |
| Chris Hubbard | $5,800,000 |
| T.J. Carrie | $5,300,000 |
| Jamar Taylor | $5,275,000 |
| Darren Fells | $3,600,000 |
| Terrance Mitchell* | $3,600,000 |
| Jason McCourty | $3,546,868 |
| Corey Coleman | $3,178,632 |
| Chris Smith | $2,666,666 |
| Britton Colquitt | $2,550,000 |
| Donald Stephenson | $2,500,000 |
| Jabrill Peppers | $2,350,508 |
| David Njoku | $2,164,851 |
| Duke Johnson | $2,084,523 |
| Jamie Meder | $1,907,000 |
| Emmanuel Ogbah | $1,802,629 |
| Damarious Randall | $1,514,418 |
| Nate Orchard | $1,421,097 |
| Carl Nassib | $995,438 |
| Cody Kessler | $924,295 |
| Larry Ogunjobi | $887,989 |
| Shon Coleman | $874,884 |
| Josh Gordon | $790,000 |
| Joe Schobert | $788,489 |
| Ricardo Louis | $771,962 |
| Derrick Kindred | $754,839 |
| Randall Telfer | $734,384 |
| Sammie Coates | $730,000 |
| Seth DeValve | $725,848 |
| Howard Wilson | $705,786 |
| Derron Smith | $705,000 |
| Max Bullough | $705,000 |
| Charley Hughlett | $705,000 |
| Spencer Drango | $681,913 |
| Dominique Alexander | $635,834 |
| Denzel Rice | $630,000 |
| Briean Boddy-Calhoun | $630,000 |
| Corey White | $630,000 |
| Michael Jordan | $630,000 |
| Kevin Hogan | $630,000 |
| Jeremy Cash | $630,000 |
| Rashard Higgins | $630,000 |
| Dan Vitale | $630,000 |
| Austin Reiter | $630,000 |
| Total | $158,442,729 |
A few notes:
- For now, all of the numbers are pulled from Spotrac, Over the Cap, and Twitter. We will be doing full, year-by-year contracts of each new player’s contract over the next few days. This will help tell us how many of the deals actually look like one-year “prove it” type of contracts.
- $13.5 million of Joe Thomas’ cap hit comes off. He’ll still carry about $750,000 in dead money I believe.
- The only player who didn’t have a year one cap hit reported yet was CB Terrance Mitchell. Because the years were the same, I made it equal to TE Darren Fells’ cap hit as an approximation.
- This also includes smaller amounts of tendered players: DT Jamie Meder as a RFA, and WR Josh Gordon, C Austin Reiter, FB Danny Vitale, and QB Kevin Hogan as ERFA.
- The team could be releasing players pretty soon, which will update the cap numbers and dead money.
Here are the updated cap figures in a more formalized manner.
CONFIRMED BY NFLPA (WITH ESTIMATED CREDIT)
NFL 2018 Salary Cap (Projected): $177.2 million
Browns’ Rollover from 2017: $58.91 million
Browns’ 2018 Adjusted Salary Cap: $177.2 million + $58.91 million = $236.11 million
Adjustments / Credits from 2017: $5.15 million + $236.11 million = $241.26 million
ESTIMATED BY OVER THE CAP (WITH DBN ADJUSTMENTS)
Browns’ Top 51 Cap Total: $158.44 million
Browns’ Dead Money for 2018: $14.02 million
Browns’ Total Cap Spent for 2018: $158.44 million + $14.02 million = $172.46 million
FINAL SALARY CAP SPACE
When you subtract the two subtotals above ($241.26 million - $172.46 million), you can see how the “$68.80 million in cap space” figure was derived.