The Los Angeles Chargers were going into the off-season in a bit of cap hell. Despite that, their situation was more easily fixable than it seemed, because it was purely due to four players not named Justin Herbert set to make over $30 million in 2024. It did mean that there would likely be some tough decisions, however, because that meant at least two of those players (of Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Joey Bosa, and Khalil Mack) were going to have to go, one way or another. And even then they wouldn’t have much left over for spending outside the Draft. However, with the news that the NFL salary cap is increasing by $30 million, that gives the Chargers a little more flexibility in roster planning that they wouldn’t have had before.
How Salary Cap Increase Could Change Chargers Roster Plans
Path to Green Shorter
As things currently stand with the new salary cap, according to OverTheCap, the Chargers are $25 million over. This still means that the Chargers will have to cut at least one of those four players with a massive cap hit. However, depending on who they choose to part ways with, they could be able to get back in the green with just one instead of two, and get the rest of the way with deal restructures and/or cuts of other relatively less costly players that could still save some space.
If made to pick one, the most likely candidate of the “big four cap hits” to get cut is Mike Williams. As solid a wideout as he is, it’s hard to justify paying him the kind of money he’s getting when he only has two 1,000-yard seasons out of seven and has been marred by injuries. Cutting him would save $20 million, leaving the team only $5 million out of the green.
Could the Pass Rusher Duo Stay Together?
The question then became if Mack or Bosa would be on the way out, because Allen seems the least likely to be going anywhere. Mack has the largest cap hit on the team, but he’s coming off a career year. However, it is within the realm of possibility now that both could stay. If one or both of them agreed to restructures, and/or some other players got cut (Eric Kendricks and Morgan Fox would save $6.5 million and $3.5 million, respectively), the Chargers could manage to keep them both around longer. With a new regime in town led by the hype train of Jim Harbaugh, players like them may be more willing to talk restructures if it means sticking with a team they think can win.
Possibility of Extra Spending Money
Of course, the Chargers could still choose to cut one of Bosa or Mack as well. And as opposed to before, when that plus Williams still wouldn’t have left them much to work with, that would free up some more spending room in free agency. Not the kind of money to go get a star player – that simply won’t be in the cards this year (unless Harbaugh and new GM Joe Hortiz torch the roster even more than expected). But if there are certain inexpensive players that Harbaugh and Hortiz want to go after, they may have more freedom to do so now.
Of course, just making one or two of those big cuts won’t seal the deal by itself. It’s been mentioned before that with an all-new regime, the Chargers may end up purging the roster a bit of players that were products of the Brandon Staley era and that hadn’t earned a long-term spot. There are a lot of guys hitting free agency anyway, but we should still expect more roster changes to come.
So ultimately, the Chargers are going from having to cut at least two star players with big cap hits to having a little more freedom and possibly getting to keep their pass-rusher duo with the right moves. There will still be tough decisions ahead for the team, and there’s still a good amount of cap money to shed. But the road to the green is a little shorter and smoother now, and this historic cap increase came at quite a good time for the Chargers.
Main Photo: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
