By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)
NFL free agency is upon us, and with it comes one of the most interesting situations in sports: Dumb front offices with a ton of money they HAVE to spend.
You see, while the NFL has promoted competition through the use of a salary cap, it is the less-often discussed salary floor that makes free agency truly compelling. The base salary cap in the league is just over $143 million this year, but teams carry over unused cap space from 2014 to make their "adjusted caps" far larger.
Just look at the case of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who were around $25 million under the cap in 2014, leading to an absurd cap figure of $168.5 million this off-season!
As one of only three teams with payrolls currently under $100 million (the other two being Oakland and the Jets), the Jags also have the chance, or in this case, obligation, to spend lavishly. Jacksonville has over $69 million in cap space, but the Jaguars front office probably isn't salivating over the chance to build a contender in one off-season. More likely, the Jacksonville brass is stressing about reaching the salary floor for this league period.
