The San Francisco 49ers appear to have settled their 53-man roster for Week 1, and with the spate of practice squad signings, the full roster of players is just about set. Plenty will change with injuries, but we have a good idea where things stand from a salary cap perspective.
Over the weekend, Jason Hurley took a look at where things stood following the initial cut to 53 players. Since then, the team acquired Xavier Cooper off waivers, moved Ronald Blair to injured reserve, and signed nine members of their practice squad. On Tuesday, the NFL Management Council released the latest round of cap space numbers, and the 49ers are on top with $64.2 million.
Official cap space as Week 1 begins:
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) September 5, 2017
Top 3:
49ers: 64.2M
Browns: 61.8M
Jaguars: 35.3M
Bottom 3:
Dolphins: 1.8M
Rams: 738k
Chargers: 434k
That number will decrease between now and the end of the year. The team will lose players to injured reserve, they might decide to cut under-performing players, and there is always the possibility of contract extension.
But even with all that in mind, the 49ers are going to head into next offseason with a ton of cap space. The 49ers currently have approximately $50.7 million in cap space for next season. They can roll over their current cap space to next season, which means at the current number, the 49ers would be looking at nearly $115 million in cap space. It will end up less than that when we get to the new league year, but the 49ers will have crazy cap space once again.
One common question is about minimum spending requirements. There is a minimum cash spending rule, but it is accounted for over four seasons. The first period of four years was from 2013 to 2016. The second period is 2017 to 2020. Each NFL team must have cash spending of 89 percent of their total salary cap over the four total, not per year.