Salary Cap Bump Is Great News for Vikings

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images The NFL informed the teams this week that the 2025 salary cap will be set between $277.5 million and $281.5 million, an increase of between $22-26 million over last year’s $255.4 million, a record $30 million increase over 2023. That’s great news for the Vikings and other NFL teams who may have been expecting a $275 million cap this year. The Vikings’ cap room is now estimated at $63 million if the cap is set in the middle of the range at $279.5 million when the league and the players’ union finalize the amount before the 2025 league year opens on March 12 with the start of free agency. Salary Cap Bump Is Great News for Vikings When I hear of these huge salary cap increases, it makes me quite envious of today’s GMs compared to the tight caps I dealt with as a player contract negotiator and capologist in my team exec years. In my last year as Titans president (where I continued to manage the salary cap), we had an increase of $3.9 million in 2003, which was tight for a team with a mature payroll that had just made it to the AFC title game. My most difficult year dealing with the cap was in 1997 as Vikings GM when I had only $701,000 more cap dollars to work with compared to 1996, which was a playoff season for us. When most of our multi-year contracts had raises built in from year to year, it created a situation where I had to restructure several contracts of top players as a first step to get under the cap. Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports. Then, I had to negotiate pay cuts for a group of players who were still starters but descending in talent or key rotation players. These were some of the most difficult contract negotiations I ever dealt with, as it was painful to tell a player and their agent that they had to take a pay cut to stay on our team. I would build incentives into the contracts so if they remained a starter or played more than the previous season, they could recoup the pay cut and increase their compensation through other incentives based on production (yards gained for a running back or sacks for a defensive lineman, as examples). Most players accepted the pay reduction with big incentive deals as they and their agents realized they had the best chance to start and produce with our team since they knew the offense or defense and had a good rapport with their coaches. Some players refused as they were overly prideful or didn’t want to face their teammates in the locker room who might tease them for taking the pay cut. These players invariably wound up playing for minimum salary on other teams where they didn’t reach their incentives. If I had a $20-30 million cap increase in those years, I rarely would have had to approach players to reduce their salaries to be cap-compliant at the start of a new league year. Unless it involved a contract that was obviously out of whack, we would’ve carried such a player on the roster into training camp to see how they performed. I think today’s NFL GMs and team contract negotiators are like the New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman has been for the past 25 years with one of the largest payrolls in baseball (where there is no salary cap and the Yankees’ TV revenue is so much greater than a team such as the Twins). How hard is it to sign players when there are excessive funds available? Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports. But these GMs still have to sign the right players for appropriate money and hope their players help produce winning seasons or a new GM will be coming soon. Owners do not like seeing their GMs make a signing like the Kirk Cousins $100 million guaranteed deal in Atlanta last year that blew up in the face of Falcons GM Terry Fontenot or the Aaron Rodgers trade and big contract that was a big reason Jets GM Joe Douglas was fired last November. The Vikings currently have the seventh-most cap room among teams in 2025, an amazing position for a 14-win team. They’re in great shape to re-sign any of their 22 pending unrestricted free agents and perhaps utilize the franchise tag if they so choose, along with signing some impact free agents from other teams at positions of need. The Vikings’ NFC North rivals also are in excellent cap shape, with the Bears at $69 million, the Lions at $52 million, and the Packers at $49 million. I pity the Saints, who, as usual, are at the bottom of the league cap-wise, as they currently are $47 million over the projected cap and will have to release and restructure a bunch of players to become cap-compliant. That’s an awful position, especially for a team coming off a 5-12 season. Brad Rempel-Imagn Images. Of course, all teams can increase their cap room by restructuring expensive contracts with base salary converted to signing bonus (which is then amortized over the life of the contract and often includes voidable years). But such restructuring increases the potential for future dead money, as was the case with the $26 million cap hit the Vikings took last season on Kirk Cousins when they did not extend his contract and he signed with Atlanta in free agency (and now the Falcons are likely going to release or trade Cousins after the bad ending to his season and they’ll take a huge dead money hit). Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and coach Kevin O’Connell have spent the past month prioritizing their own free agents to determine a pecking order to re-sign players or let them walk. That list likely starts with a vet QB in the $10 million range (Darnold, Jones, or another QB), Byron Murphy as a top corner, and Aaron Jones as the team’s No. 1 running back. Negotiations will take place in earnest at next week’s NFL Combine in Indianapolis on those players and other pending free agents who were starters or key rotation players, including CBs Stephon Gilmore and Shaq Griffin, safeties Harrison Smith and Cam Bynum, D-linemen Jerry Tillery and Jonathan Bullard, edge/OLB Pat Jones, OG Dalton Risner, OT Cam Robinson and RB Cam Akers. Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports. Adofo-Mensah, O’Connell, the player personnel staff, and assistant coaches are also putting together their target list of outside free agents to try to sign. Those discussions also will ramp up at the Combine and are technically tampering under league rules, but every team will be negotiating with agents in Indy before the “legal tampering period” opens on March 10 before being able to sign outside free agents as of March 12. It will be a fascinating next several weeks for the Vikings, who are one of the most interesting teams to follow during this period, especially with what happens at quarterback with Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones as pending free agents. Will the Vikings put the franchise or transition tag on Darnold (highly unlikely at $41 million or $35 million)? Will Darnold or Jones re-sign as a vet bridge QB to compete with 2024 first-rounder J.J. McCarthy (coming off his knee injury) and probably wind up as McCarthy’s backup (at least the Vikings will hope that’s the case with McCarthy seizing the starting job and playing well)? Stay tuned. There are lots of dominoes about to fall, but the Vikings have an abundance of cap room — that is coming in higher than expected — to bring back players they want to keep and add much-needed impact free agents on the interior offensive line and perhaps at cornerback. If the Vikings can pull off another bunch of free agent signings as impactful as last season (with Darnold, Aaron Jones, Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Blake Cashman, Gilmore, and Griffin leading the way), it will bode well for another great season with perhaps a big playoff run next time. Jeff Diamond is a former Vikings GM, former Tennessee Titans President and was selected NFL Executive of the Year after the Vikings’ 15-1 season in 1998. He now works for the NFL agent group IFA based in Minneapolis and does other sports consulting and media work along with college/corporate speaking. Follow him and direct message him on Twitter– @jeffdiamondnfl