2019 NFL salary cap, RFA tender amounts set

With free agency for NFL teams set to start on March 13, on Friday the league announced that the 2019 salary cap will officially be $188.2M before adjusting for rollover and other matters. That number, $188.2M, is on the lower end of the $187M-$191M the league had estimated several months back when the original 2019 cap estimate was reported by the league.

As a result of the fact that cap number is now known, it is also possible to calculate the different tender levels for restricted free agents, since they move in conjunction with the increases in the overall salary cap. Thus, the RFA cap numbers for each of the various levels of restricted free agents for 2019 are as follows.

So, just in case the tweet is not properly displaying, the tenders are as follows:

• Original round tender: $2.025M
• Second round tender: $3.095M
• First round tender: $4.407M

The Seattle Seahawks have several restricted free agents this offseason, including

• Tackle George Fant,
• Cornerback Akeem King,
• Fullback Tre Madden and
• Defensive end Quinton Jefferson.

There are some sites out there which list multiple other members of the Hawks as restricted free agents that are not accurate. For example, Spotrac lists Tyler Ott, Joey Hunt, Brandon Jackson and J.D. McKissic all as RFAs, even though none of them are. Hunt, for example, spent only five weeks on the active roster in 2017, meaning he did not accrue a season and is an exclusive rights free agent (ERFA).

Similarly, Jackson spent only five weeks of the 2016 regular season on the 53 man roster of the Oakland Raiders, thus he did not earn an accrued season that year. Of note, the fact that the Raiders made the postseason in 2016 is irrelevant, as postseason games do not count towards earning either accrued or credited seasons under the CBA. Similarly, J.D. McKissic spent the majority of 2016 on the practice squad of the Atlanta Falcons, and was only on the active roster with the Falcons for Week 15. McKissic was then waived and awarded to the Seahawks on waivers, where he was on the roster for Weeks 16 and 17. Therefore he did not earn an accrued season in 2016.

Likewise, Tyler Ott has been on and off the roster and/or practice squad of multiple franchises since going undrafted out of Harvard in 2014, including the New England Patriots, St. Louis Rams, New York Giants and Cincinnati Bengals. However, he did spend enough time on the 53 of any of those teams to earn an accrued season, and the only two accrued seasons he has recorded are 2017 and 2018 with the Hawks.

In any case, we now know what the RFA tender levels are and what the salary cap is for 2019, and it’s simply a matter of the Seahawks fitting all the pieces of the puzzle in the space they have available.