JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars have the most salary cap room in a deflated NFL market.
Thank you, Dave Caldwell.
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Now, what can the Jaguars do with that?
General manager Trent Baalke said on Wednesday that the Jaguars plan to be active when the free-agency period opens next week. Whether that’s in signing value players or spending on a big-ticket free agent or two shortly after 4 p.m. on March 17, don’t expect Jacksonville to sit idly by.
The Jaguars are positioned better than any other team in the league. In addition to the No. 1 overall draft pick, which is widely assumed to be used on Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville has a staggering amount of money to throw at free agents.
The Jaguars have a league-best $73,669,714 available, according to OverTheCap.com. There are 10 teams in the NFL that are over the cap, including the Rams at a staggering $33.1 million in the red.
“We’re always going to look to push the envelope and spend, spend to the cap on a three-year rolling cycle, whether you’re above or below, but over a three-year period, hoping to spend to the cap,” Baalke said. “And we have an ownership that’s willing to do that and we want to do that so we’re going to use the dollars.”
The NFL salary cap decreased by a sizable chunk, due to the financial losses created by the coronavirus pandemic.
The league announced on Wednesday that the 2021 cap is $182.5 million. That’s nearly $17 million less than it was a year ago, and significantly less than it would have been. The cap jumped by $10 million from 2019 to ’20.
Fewer teams are in position to offer rich free agent contracts, which will no doubt lead to a buyer’s market, at least in 2021.
“We’re looking for value. That isn’t always the most expensive player. There’s all different levels of like, right? When we say we like a player, to what level and what value do we place on them,” Baalke said. “So, that’s going to be critical as we build this this team out moving forward, is making sure we get the value of the position in the player correct.”
To put it mildly, Caldwell, the former GM who was fired after a 1-10 start last year, didn’t have the best track record in free agency or hitting on first-round draft picks. But his final offseason cleaning up bad contracts and jettisoning players left the franchise in very good shape for the new regime.
“We’ll follow that, we’ll be involved in that [early process of the big free-agent contracts],” Baalke said. “Where it ends up leading us to, player wise, that remains to be seen. But we feel very good about where we’re currently at. We feel good about the plan. And now we just got to execute.”
Baalke and Meyer won’t have a tough act to follow in mid-March.
Caldwell’s free agent history was rough. For every Calais Campbell and Malik Jackson success story, there were multiple big-ticket whiffs.
Remember expensive free agent additions like quarterback Nick Foles, tight end Julius Thomas, running backs Chris Ivory and Toby Gerhart and guard Zane Beadles?
“I spoke earlier about value. I think value is critical. You know, you have to get the value of the players right. Just like building a stock portfolio if you get a bunch of ... overpriced stocks, you buy high and sell low, eventually that catches up with you,” Baalke said. “So, we want to treat the players ... right and value them correctly and bring them into the organization and give them the best of the best. And that’s what we’re looking to do.”