Brian Gutekunst discusses how salary cap increase helps Packers

NFL teams recently got the news that the salary cap is set to increase going into 2024. With that, Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst recently discussed how that increase should help the team this offseason.

Gutekunst explained that there’s no way for the salary cap to go high enough when trying to build a team. However, he did emphasize that it still comes down to making the right decisions.

“It’s very helpful when it goes up,” Brian Gutekunst said. “It can’t go high enough. But, at the same time, it’s really about the decisions we make moving forward and how we structure some of those things. So, the news was good to hear and I think that will help us with some flexibility and it may alter some decisions that we make and how we go about it, but overall I don’t think it’s going to change our approach too much.”

Obviously, Gutekunst left things vague about how the Packers intend to use the increased salary cap money. However, it should give the team more financial flexibility to make the moves that it wants to this season.

The actual salary cap increase is pretty massive. In 2024, it’s going to be set at $255.4 million, which is a $30.6 million increase from last season. An additional $74 million per club payment for player benefits will also be included. In total, players costs will be $329.4 million per club, which is more than $10.5 billion league-wide.

The Packers are among the teams that needed the salary cap increase too. Green Bay is going into free agency with just $2.3 million in available cap space. That’s 24th in the league in regards to available salary cap, which is the least of any team with a positive number for cap space.

NFL executive describes salary cap increase as ‘Taylor Swift surplus’

There are a lot of reasons why the NFL’s salary cap went up ahead of the 2024 season. However, according to one NFL executive, this is a Taylor Swift surplus.

“As we head towards the NFL Combine & free agency, an NFL front office source just shared with me it’ll be interesting for them to watch how teams use their ‘Taylor Swift surplus’ in cap space,” Josina Anderson of CBS Sports said. “Will teams actually spend it, just hold it, or pay down debt?”

It’s kind of funny to think about, but the attention that Taylor Swift added to the NFL was massive. Now, the league is seeing the rewards of that interest.