We heard earlier this week that the lowest the salary cap would be was $180MM. The initial minimum cap had been reported to be $175MM, so that increase led to some speculation that the actual salary cap could end up being $190MM+.

That would’ve meant there wouldn’t have been that dramatic of a decrease from last year’s cap of $198.2MM, but that speculation looks to have been a bit optimistic. The number most likely won’t reach $185MM and could end up between $182-183MM, a source told Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com.

The cap had been steadily increasing in recent years, but obviously the COVID-19 pandemic halted that. Revenue loss as a result of the pandemic was always going to send the cap down for 2021, it was only a question of how much, and now we appear to more or less have our answer.

It looks like teams will each have around $15MM less to play with this season, which will give some squads some headaches. While there will still be a lot of shuffling required for teams to get under the number, it sounds like a true disaster was averted.

The initial plan of $175MM was ditched after some “aggressive lobbying” from teams, Florio writes. A source told him that had it been $175MM, it would’ve been chaos as teams would have “flooded the market” with veteran players they cut to get down under the cap.s

The NFL has raised its salary cap floor to $180MM for 2021 (Twitter link via ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter). Previously, the cap minimum was set to be $175MM for the coming year.

The raising of the minimum could be a promising sign for the salary cap maximum in the coming year. The limit is still set to drop for the first time in years, but a higher floor could mean for a higher ceiling. Over the last few months, we’ve been hearing cap estimates of $180MM. Now, that’s the minimum spend, which, speculatively, could mean a cap of $190MM+.

Last year, the salary cap was $198.2MM for each of the league’s 32 teams. The league had been steadily increasing the cap every year since 2010, when the NFL was uncapped. If not for the pandemic, the 2021 cap would have easily exceeded $210MM.

There’s no word on when the cap max will be set, but it will be determined sometime between now and the new league year, which begins on March 17th. If the NFL is able to iron out new television deals with their broadcasting partners in the next few weeks, the cap could be positioned for a substantial jump in 2022. Reportedly, the league is aiming for a total of $100 billion over the next ten-year extension.