One of the irritating issues this time of year is that we read different numbers from article to article and tweet to tweet about cap space.
Some of that occurs because of different assumptions by the writers of those tweets and headlines — for example, one guy reports the current estimate while the next guy assumes that Marshon Lattimore will be released and Laremy Tunsil will sign an extension. That’s mildly irritating to readers, but at least it’s clear and understandable.
What can often be a bigger mystery is why the two popular public sources for salary cap information seem to report cap space numbers that differ by millions of dollars. How can it happen and which numbers can you trust?
Spotrac vs Over the Cap
February is an ideal time to look at the differences between the two reporting services because the numbers right now are relatively uncluttered by guesses about a lot of things.
Still, when I looked at the two sites today, I see that Over the Cap shows the Commanders with 53 players currently under contract for a total of $258,079,456, while Spotrac has the team with 52 players totaling $247,030,857.
The difference between the two is $11,048,599.
That feels like a lot.
Deebo Samuel
Well, the biggest difference is that Sportrac accounted for the voiding of Deebo Samuel’s contract on Friday while Over the Cap hasn’t done the data entry yet.
When OTC voids the contract, then it will look like this:
Okay, that looks better than an $11m variance, but it seems like $1.3m is still a lot of difference. What’s going on here?
Of the 52 players that both sites list on the roster, they agree on the 2026 cap charges for 38 of them. That leaves cap charges for 14 players that aren’t the same. That also seems like a lot.
Well, those 14 players break down into 3 groups.
What’s going on with those 14 players?
Group One: Typos
There is a $3 difference between the two sites for Jaylin Lane’s contract. OTC has an even $1,233,460 while Sportac has it as $1,233,463. One of them probably made a simple data entry error.
Same for Tyler Owens, who has a $1 difference that could be a typo or might be a rounding error.
The two errors net out to a $2 difference.
Two down, twelve to go.
Group Two: Per game roster bonus
The major issue when it comes to reconciling the two sites is the handling of per game roster bonuses.
Spotrac simply includes the entire bonus in the projected cap cost, which is not in line with NFL salary cap rules for bonuses likely to be earned.
The CBA stipulates that bonuses are deemed likely to be earned if the player would have earned them last year.
Over the Cap applies this logic, and only includes the amount of dollars that would be expected to be paid to the player based on the number of games played in 2025.
This affects 10 players and ends up looking like this:
You can see that these 10 players have the variance between Over the Cap and Spotrac completely explained by the difference in treatment of per-game roster bonuses.
This accounts for $1,338,824 of the difference between our two sources.
That’s another ten down, with two to go.
Group Three: Estimated Proven Performance Escalator and “Other”
Quan Martin
The CBA has a program called the Prove Performance Escalator (PPE) that rewards mid- and late-round draft picks who get a lot of playing time by boosting their pay in the 4th year of their contract.
Both Spotrac and OTC have estimated an increase in Quan Martin’s 4th year salary based on the PPE, but the estimated 4th year salary differs by about $107,000, with OTC projecting a base salary of $3.605m and Spotrac estimating it at $3.712m.
Jeremy Reaves
Over the Cap has $150,000 listed as “Other” for Jeremy Reaves; Sportrac doesn’t have it.
OTC offers no explanation for the cap charge so I don’t know what it is. But it is the reason for the $150k difference in Reavo’s contract calculations on the two sites.
And that’s it; the two sources are reconciled!
You can see that what can appear to be puzzling differences between sources of salary cap information typically come down to simple explanations like data entry errors (Jaylin Lane & Tyler Owens), timing (Deebo’s voided contract), differing estimates (Quan Martin), minor contract details (Jeremy Reaves) and different treatment of CBA rules (Per Game Roster Bonuses).
A key thing to remember is that both Spotrac and Over the Cap are making a number of assumptions, educated guesses and estimations. There will always be differences between the two sources, but the NFL and NFLPA update the actual cap space situation once each year, which allows both sources to ‘reset’ to the same number before differences start creeping in again.
Salary cap estimates are always fluid and often confusing.
Once the Deebo Samuel voided contract is accounted for, both sources put the Commanders actual cap spending for 52 players at around $246m (plus or minus $1m).
Right now, Spotrac says the Commanders have cap space of $66.5m.
After OTC enters the Deebo Samuel contract void, their estimated cap space number should update to $63.1m.
For the purposes of being a Commanders fan, either number should be “close enough”.
The Commanders, right now, are estimated to have the 6th-most cap space in the NFL, which is quite a lot for a team with 52 players under contract. Adam Peters has plenty of ammunition for free agency, and the likelihood of getting his hands on another $18.5m by releasing Marshon Lattimore before the start of the new league year in mid-March.