Jan. 30, 2026, 8:15 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
On Friday, the NFL informed the Detroit Lions<\/a> and all of the league’s clubs of its projected 2026 salary cap range<\/a>.<\/p>\n Per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the NFL informed teams that it is projecting the salary cap in the range of $301.2 million to $305.7 million per club. That would be up from this year’s $279.2 million cap number. It also represents nearly a $100 million increase from the $208.2 million cap in 2022.<\/p>\n The NFL’s projected 2026 salary cap range is nearly double the $155.27 million salary cap that the league had a decade ago during the 2016 season.<\/p>\n Here’s a look at the NFL salary cap’s growth over the past decade:<\/p>\n 2016: $155.27M2017: $167M2018: $177.2M2019: $188.2M2020: $198.2M2021: $182.5M2022: $208.2M2023: $224.8M2024: $255.4M2025: $279.2M2026: $301.2M-$305.7M (projected)Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n Per Spotrac, the Lions<\/a> would be $8.26 million over the cap at the midpoint of the projected 2026 salary cap range ($303.5 million).<\/p>\n For more\u00a0Lions<\/a>\u00a0coverage, follow us on X,\u00a0@TheLionsWire<\/a>, and give our\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0page a like.\u00a0Follow Josh on X,\u00a0@JoshOnLions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 30, 2026, 8:15 p.m. ET On Friday, the NFL informed the Detroit Lions and all of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[95878,146,113,2506,7,147,6,52959,96502,95882,96242,95893,102623,95896,95888,95895,95899,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-718515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-lions","11":"tag-detroitlions","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-lions","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnfllions","16":"tag-sstsnlions","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagdetroit-lions","19":"tag-tagfacebook","20":"tag-taghuman-resources","21":"tag-tagnational-sports","22":"tag-tagnfl","23":"tag-tagnfl-hub","24":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","25":"tag-tagsports-news","26":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115988457796569617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}