{"id":780566,"date":"2026-02-27T19:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T19:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/780566\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T19:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T19:58:16","slug":"49ers-news-nfl-salary-cap-reaches-300-million-for-1st-time-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/780566\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers news: NFL salary cap reaches $300 million for 1st time in history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The NFL announced on Friday that this season\u2019s salary cap will be $301.2 million per team this year, up from $279.2 million in 2025, as the league\u2019s cap continues to grow at a high rate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">As a result, the San Francisco 49ers are projected to have approximately $38.9 million in cap space this offseason, according to OverTheCap, with room to grow depending on several roster moves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Earlier this offseason, NFL Network\u2019s Tom Pelissero reported that the NFL informed teams it was projected the 2026 salary cap would be in the range of $301.2 million to $305.7 million per team this season. It ultimately fell on the shorter side at $301.2 million, representing a 7.9 percent increase year-by-year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In 2025, the salary cap ended up being higher than expected, with teams expecting the cap to be in the range of $265 million to $275 million before the number ended up at $279.2 million, representing a 9.3 percent increase year-by-year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">When looking at the 49ers, there are a couple of ways to increase their cap space, with a Trent Williams extension\/restructure being the easiest way to do so. Currently, the star left tackle holds a cap hit of $38.8 million for the 2026 season and is on the final year of his deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">So it seems like a solution will be coming there at some point, which should lower Williams\u2019s cap hit for the 2026 season and increase the cap room for the 49ers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The 49ers could also look to restructure Nick Bosa\u2019s contract for the first time since handing him a five-year, $170 million extension in 2023. He is currently slated to hold a $41.6 million cap hit in 2026, but that increases to $52.03 million in 2027.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The other big expected move is the handling of Brandon Aiyuk\u2019s contract, as the 49ers voided the guarantees in the wideout\u2019s contract last offseason and are expected to move off him this offseason. That should free up some cap space for the team, although it\u2019s not known exactly how much that would be. Prior to the voided guarantees, Aiyuk was scheduled to hold a $14.6 million cap hit in 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The good news is that there aren\u2019t any other major extensions needed for the 49ers apart from Williams. San Francisco has Bosa, Brock Purdy, Fred Warner, George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, Deommodore Lenoir, and Colton McKivitz locked up for at least the next two seasons, with a majority extended beyond that as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">So we\u2019ll see how aggressive the 49ers are with their newfound cap space after spending most of their money last offseason extending their core players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL announced on Friday that this season\u2019s salary cap will be $301.2 million per team this year,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,7,6,1161,252,1137,11490,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-780566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","13":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-news","14":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-salary-cap","15":"tag-sanfrancisco","16":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116144367598929495","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780566","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=780566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}