I think this is a pretty good explanation of how the salary cap works and Howie's manipulations. I'm not going to post the whole thing, it's pretty long.

Bleeding Green Nation

A Deep Dive Into the NFL Salary Cap and Howie Roseman’s E...

Your best source for quality Philadelphia Eagles news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/philadelphia-eagles-analysis/170814/a-deep-dive-into-the-nfl-salary-cap-and-howie-rosemans-eagles-philosophy

The Eagles have had the most unique situation in the NFL in the fact that Howie Roseman has basically been given total immunity from being fired. That allows for unlimited years long plans to be implemented and carried out as compared to most GMs having to work within a 2, maybe 3 year window. It's also interesting to hear that apparently Lurie has more cash on hand than many other owners.

This is a fantastic read and should be required reading for everyone on the off season/draft forum.

Way over my head to comprehend.

Maybe vikas could provide Cliff Notes??

4 minutes ago, LacesOut said:

Way over my head to comprehend.

Maybe vikas could provide Cliff Notes??

1.salary cap is x amount. say 100 million. Eagles pay out like 300 million to players. Cash over cap spending.

Most teams cant do it (or at least to the extent the eagles do) because owners dont have as much liquidity. Their money is tied up in assets. Lurie has boatloads of cash to cut the checks so the eagles can utilize this strategy basically more than any other team.

2.Some fans complain that structuring contracts in this way kicks the can down the road. They believe that something like losing Milton Williams proves that Howie has gotten himself in to trouble by kicking the can and time came to pay the piper.

The fact is that the eagles already had/have a more talented roster than the rest of the league because of the way Howie does things. Because of Lurie spending 300 million instead of the cap number of 100 million (example numbers). If they didnt use so much cash, theyd be more limited by the actual salary cap limit and the team would be far less talented. Theyd have had a lot less star players already and just losing Milton Williams would be the least of our concerns.

3.Howie can continue pushing bonuses in to the future because as an example a 1 million dollar bonus today out of a 100 million dollar cap represents 1% of the cap. When he pushes that bonus in to future years when the cap grows, that same 1 million dollar bonus out of a 125 million dollar salary cap becomes a smaller percentage of the cap. It now equals 0.8% of the cap. So basically borrowing a dollar from future years equates to Howie having $1.20 instead of just the $1.00 he borrowed. Or, spending tomorrow's dollar today means Howie is actually spending $0.80 even thought he paid a player $1.00

All example numbers just to keep it simple and show the theory behind it.

Or maybe HazletonEagle can assist with an explanation for stupid people like me. Thanks!

I assume the Eagles are not 'cooking the book's' in any way/shape/form. They are just better skilled and versed, with this aspect of running an NFL Organization.

I wonder how Lurie has so much cash when other Owners don't. Just curious. I'm sure I'll never find out.

13 minutes ago, LacesOut said:

Or maybe HazletonEagle can assist with an explanation for stupid people like me. Thanks!

I assume the Eagles are not 'cooking the book's' in any way/shape/form. They are just better skilled and versed, with this aspect of running an NFL Organization.

I wonder how Lurie has so much cash when other Owners don't. Just curious. I'm sure I'll never find out.

Its all legal.

Its the same principle we used to use when Howie would create cap space by restructuring deals. Turn salary in to bonus money. Suddenly theres millions freed up. Thats because salary goes on the ledger immediately, in full. Bonuses can be prorated over future years (even though the player gets all of the money right now).

So, now Howie just skips the the restructure step and just signs them all to those type of deals right away.

That is a pretty good article which covers the most important, say, 90% of considerations with the salary cap. I'll add just a couple of notes:

1) There used to be another responsible and competitive way to run a salary cap prior to 2011, which was to lock up good young players early with extensions. By doing that, the player got some serious money early in their career, and the team got them under contract at a much lower level than if you let them reach or get close to free agency. That is how Howie used to run the cap in the pre-Chip Kelly era. The NFL instituted a rule in 2011 that required teams to wait until after the third year of a player's initial contract was completed to extend the player, which made that method far less useful. (I believe the full affects of that rule did not crystallize until 2013 or 2014 because it applied to players drafted in 2011 and later, so draft picks from 2009 and 2010 could still be signed to earlier extensions through 2013.)

When Howie came back to take the GM reins after Lurie axed Chip (who was around from 2013-15), his hand was kind of forced into the "kick-the-can-down-the-road" mode by the new rule as well as some of the contracts and mistakes that Chip had made.

2) The monster lying under the bed with the "kick-the-can" approach is if a highly paid player fails early on a contract. To cut or trade the player in year 1 or 2 of such a contract is enormously expensive against the cap and can really push you off your budget flexibility with a lot of dead money hitting the cap all at once. That is more or less what happened with Carson Wentz, which hamstrung them for a while. So when you sign a player to a long-term high-dollar contract, you better be sure you expect him to stay on the roster for no less than three, and hopefully four or even five years. We're seeing the effects of that idea with AJ Brown, whose cap hit would definitely hurt if cut or traded (certainly pre June 1, and to a lesser degree after June 1).

On 2/23/2026 at 8:00 AM, EaglesAddict said:

The Eagles have had the most unique situation in the NFL in the fact that Howie Roseman has basically been given total immunity from being fired. That allows for unlimited years long plans to be implemented and carried out as compared to most GMs having to work within a 2, maybe 3 year window. It's also interesting to hear that apparently Lurie has more cash on hand than many other owners.

Helps him play chess when the rest are playing checkers.

On 2/23/2026 at 7:57 PM, BayAreaLennie said:

That is a pretty good article which covers the most important, say, 90% of considerations with the salary cap. I'll add just a couple of notes:

1) There used to be another responsible and competitive way to run a salary cap prior to 2011, which was to lock up good young players early with extensions. By doing that, the player got some serious money early in their career, and the team got them under contract at a much lower level than if you let them reach or get close to free agency. That is how Howie used to run the cap in the pre-Chip Kelly era. The NFL instituted a rule in 2011 that required teams to wait until after the third year of a player's initial contract was completed to extend the player, which made that method far less useful. (I believe the full affects of that rule did not crystallize until 2013 or 2014 because it applied to players drafted in 2011 and later, so draft picks from 2009 and 2010 could still be signed to earlier extensions through 2013.)

When Howie came back to take the GM reins after Lurie axed Chip (who was around from 2013-15), his hand was kind of forced into the "kick-the-can-down-the-road" mode by the new rule as well as some of the contracts and mistakes that Chip had made.

2) The monster lying under the bed with the "kick-the-can" approach is if a highly paid player fails early on a contract. To cut or trade the player in year 1 or 2 of such a contract is enormously expensive against the cap and can really push you off your budget flexibility with a lot of dead money hitting the cap all at once. That is more or less what happened with Carson Wentz, which hamstrung them for a while. So when you sign a player to a long-term high-dollar contract, you better be sure you expect him to stay on the roster for no less than three, and hopefully four or even five years. We're seeing the effects of that idea with AJ Brown, whose cap hit would definitely hurt if cut or traded (certainly pre June 1, and to a lesser degree after June 1).

Did the Carson Wentz situation really hamstring that much? I mean they were in the playoffs the following season, and in the Super Bowl the year after that. The best thing that happened after Wentz was Howie’s drafting. It really is what took off. He was always good at making trades, but he really, struggled at drafting.

3 minutes ago, EazyEaglez said:

Did the Carson Wentz situation really hamstring that much? I mean they were in the playoffs the following season, and in the Super Bowl the year after that. The best thing that happened after Wentz was Howie’s drafting. It really is what took off. He was always good at making trades, but he really, struggled at drafting.

We have years where we're a little bit thin in terms of money for free agents but, we are never in " salary cap hell" that a lot of people have been predicting since Howie took over

4 minutes ago, Bwestbrook36 said:

We have years where we're a little bit thin in terms of money for free agents but, we are never in " salary cap hell" that a lot of people have been predicting since Howie took over

Been hearing about this cap hell for what seems like decades now. Every year the cap goes up, and the Eagles keep getting players and winning.

22 hours ago, EazyEaglez said:

Did the Carson Wentz situation really hamstring that much? I mean they were in the playoffs the following season, and in the Super Bowl the year after that. The best thing that happened after Wentz was Howie’s drafting. It really is what took off. He was always good at making trades, but he really, struggled at drafting.

Not a ton from a long term perspective because Howie was able to offload the future guaranteed money with the trade, but they took a then record $33.82 million dead cap hit in 2021 … so for one year, yeah, it had an effect. And of course, cap space can be rolled over to future years, so it had some second order effects even after that, though they were slight.

12 hours ago, BayAreaLennie said:

Not a ton from a long term perspective because Howie was able to offload the future guaranteed money with the trade, but they took a then record $33.82 million dead cap hit in 2021 … so for one year, yeah, it had an effect. And of course, cap space can be rolled over to future years, so it had some second order effects even after that, though they were slight.

They also took a hit Thanks to Bryce Huff too. Howie still finds ways to overcome this stuff.

On 3/5/2026 at 2:48 PM, EazyEaglez said:

Did the Carson Wentz situation really hamstring that much? I mean they were in the playoffs the following season, and in the Super Bowl the year after that. The best thing that happened after Wentz was Howie’s drafting. It really is what took off. He was always good at making trades, but he really, struggled at drafting.

It did, but we were lucky to have Hurts playing well on a rookie contract.

55 minutes ago, beto_eagles said:

It did, but we were lucky to have Hurst playing well on a rookie contract.

That was a Howie move. He drafted the guy and planned for it. Frankly Howie drafting Hurts and prepping for the implosion of Wentz was good work on his part. I believe Howie will play this Brown situation intelligently.