CINCINNATI -- Expect the Cincinnati Bengals to be one of the teams with the most space when the 2015 salary cap is formally announced.
Based on current estimates of the league-wide cap, it appears they will be about $33 million under the limit. Only six other teams can say for now that they will have at least that much cap space for the new league year.
Officially, the league year begins next month when contracts for the 2015 season are recognized. By 4 p.m. ET on March 10, all 32 teams must be under the new cap limit.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, seven teams, led by the New Orleans Saints, will have to race to get under the cap in the next few weeks. Each of them are currently operating over the limit, with the Saints' spending more than $27.9 million over it.
ESPN Stats & Information's cap numbers were published in a chart in this story on free agency earlier this week and are based on the assumption of a $140-million-per-team cap limit for 2015. Using that projection, the Bengals have $32,802,385 to spend entering free agency and the draft. That number is determined by calculating the initial cap limit of $24,105,075 that the Bengals have and adding it on top of the $8,697,310 rollover from the team's 2014 spending.
Most teams like to hold some funds in a reserve fund that later can be rolled over and included in the following season's spending. The $8.7-million rollover is the sixth-largest for a team this year. Expect the Bengals to hold on to another sizable chunk of their cap space this year in order to have an amount that can carry over to next year's spending. Doing so is common practice for them.
Does all this cap space mean the Bengals are going to buy the world when free agency starts next month? Probably not. But it does mean the Bengals can afford to be a little more aggressive with their free agency spending -- as coach Marvin Lewis has suggested -- than in past years.
When free agency started last year, the Bengals were in the $30-million ballpark in cap space. But last offseason was vastly different than this one. They had two primary spending objectives last offseason: to re-sign Andy Dalton and Vontaze Burfict. This year, Cincinnati doesn't have any massive contracts to extend unless it decides to move a year early on Pro Bowl receiver A.J. Green. He could command an offer that would make him one of the highest-paid receivers in the league. Eight wideouts currently make more than $10 million a year. Green definitely could be part of that group.