The NFL salary cap naturally rises every year, it's just a matter of by how much. On Friday the league announced the 2024 salary cap will be $255.4 million per team. The far exceeds most early unofficial estimates, though Pro Football Talk did report it could be up to $250 million. Last year's salary cap was $224.8 million.
“The unprecedented $30 million increase per club in this year’s Salary Cap is the result of the full repayment of all amounts advanced by the clubs and deferred by the players during the Covid pandemic as well as an extraordinary increase in media revenue for the 2024 season.”
So every team now has more cap space then they expected to have, even with an increase known to be coming. The Detroit Lions were already in nice shape, getting to more than $50 million in cap space with the release of safety Tracy Walker on Tuesday.
Updated Detroit Lions 2024 salary cap space after league's official announcement
The Lions have some players in line for performance escalators (Amon-Ra St. Brown, Alim McNeill, Derrick Barnes), as noted by Justin Rogers of the Detroit News, which will impact their 2024 cap space some. "Effective cap space" is also impacted by what it'll cost a team to sign it's projected draft class, as well as a roster being at a minimum 51 players or not and veteran minimum holds that could be applicable.
With all of that said, Over The Cap has these numbers for the Lions right now.
- Cap Space: $63,743,386 (eighth-most in the league)
- Effective Cap Space: $55,919,783 (also eighth-most in the league)
Of course this doesn't mean the Lions will suddenly be better able to sign free agents. Every team has more money to spend, and the price for players will go up in line with that. But more is good in this situation, and the Lions remain in better shape cap-wise than a lot of teams as February winds down.