Two Examples of How To Get Under the Dynasty Owner Salary Cap
By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)
All Dynasty Owner teams need to get under the 2023 salary cap figure of $157.36 million by the end of this week – specifically by Sunday, April 16th. This is the first big deadline of the 2023 Dynasty Owner season. If you have a Dynasty Owner team that isn’t under the salary cap by that date, then you are leaving important roster decisions up to another entity as all Dynasty Owner teams will be under the salary cap, one way or another, by the next day. Even if you have players on your team who received a new contract with an increased salary recently, your Dynasty Owner team still needs to be under the salary cap by April 16th. Everyone who has Odell Beckham Jr. and his new $15 million contract on their roster needs to have a plan for reducing their team’s salaries if his $13.75 million salary increase pushed the team over the salary cap.
Right now, I’m over the salary cap in just one out of my six Dynasty Owner leagues and that team is only over by $3.21 million. I have several players who got new contracts, such as Jakobi Meyers ($11,000,000), Allen Lazard ($11,000,000) and Noah Fant ($6,850,000) who I could drop for free at any time along with a couple of players who I could release and pay between $3 million and $5 million in Dynasty Dollars to get under the salary cap. I’m waiting and seeing about trade offers before I make the final decision on what to do. This is a sound strategy that all Dynasty Owners should try to employ if they are over the salary cap.
Overall, there are 21 teams over the salary cap across my six leagues with at least three teams over the salary cap in every league. That’s nearly 30% of the teams in my leagues who are still over the salary cap with only days to go. I’m not sure if that’s normal or not, but it does seem like a lot of teams.
The over the salary cap teams run the gamut. One team is less than $500,000 over and all they need to do is drop any player since the minimum NFL and Dynasty Owner salary is now $750,000. Another team is $801,845 over the salary cap. On the other end of the spectrum, there are two teams in different leagues that have salaries over $50 million above the salary cap. One of those teams has Aaron Rodgers ($50,271,667) so if they just exercise the free drop on him in the next couple of days, they will be just a little over $7 million over the salary cap, which is much more manageable. The other team has both Kyler Murray ($46,100,000) and Dak Prescott ($40,000,000) on their roster so they could get under the salary cap by $31.57 million if they just drop those two QBs. Because Prescott didn’t have a recent contract change, the fee to drop him is $20 million Dynasty Dollars. The Dynasty Owner could use an Amnesty Provision, which only cost $5 million Dynasty Dollars, instead to save money.
Unless your Dynasty Owner team roster is sitting at the minimum of 25 players plus 2023 draft picks, Dynasty Owners can drop a player or two and make it under the salary cap pretty easily. If the player who is dropped had a contract change since the start of NFL free agency, that drop won’t even cost you any Dynasty Dollars.
Other Dynasty Owners are in more much precarious situations and need to cut big salary players or employ some creative thinking in order to get their team under the salary cap and stay at or above the roster minimum by the looming deadline. The team I mentioned earlier that can drop both Prescott and Murray would still have Geno Smith ($25,000,000) and Jordan Love ($3,095,863) at QB, which is fine. However, the team would be better if they traded one or both of them and got something of value (player or draft picks) in return.
To help my fellow Dynasty Owners who may still be over the salary cap, I will take a look at two over-the-salary cap Orphan teams available in the D.O. Store. Anybody can pick up one of these teams, or any Orphan team, for just $29 or $75 million Dynasty Dollars and execute the plan presented below. Or you can buy one of these teams and make your own decisions on how to get the team under the salary cap and into the playoffs next year.
All stats cited are based on the Standard Dynasty Owner scoring system as outlined in the updated Dynasty Owner Constitution. Standard Dynasty Owner scoring gives you .1 points for every yard rushing or receiving, .1 point for every 2 yards passing, 1 point per reception, 6 points for a rushing, receiving or passing touchdown and 2 points for a successful 2-point conversion (rushing, receiving, or passing). Interceptions or fumbles lost cost you 3 points, while a fumble that is recovered by the player’s team is a loss of only 1 point. Bonus points are available for 100-199 yards rushing (2 points), 200 yards rushing or receiving (6 points), 300-399 yards passing (1 point) and 400 yards passing (4 points). There is also a 3 point bonus for clutch scoring, which is a score that results in a lead change in the final two minutes of the 4th quarter or overtime. Kickoff and punt return touchdowns are worth 6 points for the player and kickoff and punt returns are worth 1 point for every 40 yards.
Contract information for all players can be found on the Dynasty Owner platform. Just go to the player’s profile page and click Contract to see if there is any new contract news.
For the purposes of this article, salaries and roster percentages were current as of the afternoon of April 11th.
Example #1: Orphan Team Nearly $40 Million Over Cap
The first orphan team is nearly $40 million over the cap and has four players taking up just over $114 million in salary cap room. The rest of the players on the roster only cost $81 million in salary, so it would appear that this team needs to drop at least one of the high salary players to get under the salary cap. Here is the other available information about this team.
- 2023 Finish: Third – lost in the semi-finals, but won the third place game
- Current Roster Size: 30
- Current Salaries: $195.19 million
- Dynasty Dollars: $10.68 million
- Amnesty Provisions: 2
- 2023 Draft Picks: 2.10, 3.08 and 3.10
- No 2024 third round rookie draft picks
- All 2025 and 2026 draft picks are intact
The two Amnesty Provisions can be helpful in dropping the high salary players if they didn’t get a contract change this year. However, this team is lacking in draft capital and has only three late 2023 rookie draft picks overall. The good news about the roster size is that they can cut up to eight players. This may be necessary as the team has a large number of inexpensive players (eight players with salaries under $1 million plus seven with salaries between $1 million and $2 million). Of course, not all of those players should be on the chopping block.
The main issue are the four high-salary players who are taking up over 70% of the $157.36 million salary cap. Those players are as follows:
| Player | Position | Team | Contract Change | Contract Years Left | Annual Salary |
| Daniel Jones | QB | NYG | Yes | 4 | $40,000,000 |
| Tyreek Hill | WR | MIA | Yes | 4 | $30,000,000 |
| Davante Adams | WR | LV | No | 4 | $28,000,000 |
| Christian McCaffrey | RB | SF | No | 2 | $16,015,875 |
In addition to being expensive, those four players are likely also responsible for the team’s playoff appearance last year as all of them were in the top 10 at their position (McCaffrey – RB2, Hill – WR2, Adams – WR4, and Jones – QB10).
The next Dynasty Owner has an easy solution to this team’s salary problem. They can drop Daniel Jones for free since he had a contract change and save $40 million. This would put the team under the cap by $2.17 million so they’d still have a trim more in salary for their draft picks, but that shouldn’t be too hard, and they wouldn’t have a problem with going below the roster minimum.
The problem for this team is that Jones is their only guaranteed Week 1 starting QB for next season as these are the only two QBs on their roster.
| Player | Position | Team | Contract Change | Contract Years Left | Annual Salary |
| Davis Mills | QB | HOU | No | 2 | $1,304,383 |
| Brock Purdy | QB | SF | No | 3 | $934,252 |
Last year, this QB situation was fine as Purdy put up an average of 22.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points from Week 13 to Week 17 and together with Daniel Jones, they were pretty solid pair of QBs. Now, Jones is on the chopping block, Purdy might not be ready for Week 1 due to the injury he suffered in the playoffs, or because the 49ers decide to start Trey Lance ($8,526,319) ahead of him. Mills is very likely out as the Texans’ starter as Houston seems likely to draft a QB with the #2 overall pick in the NFL Draft. Suddenly, just dropping Jones isn’t as easy as it seemed.
- Move #1: Drop Daniel Jones and replace him with Kirk Cousins from the Free Agent Auction.
- Salary reduction = $5,000,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = at least $1 million (to bid on Cousins)
The QB position is as set as it can be in the short term with the Cousins’ addition. This team has J.K. Dobbins ($1,432,359) as the RB2 and Khalil Herbert ($902,677), Jeff Wilson ($3,000,000) and Alexander Mattison ($3,500,000) as the primary Bench RBs. Both Wilson and Mattison have new contracts so they could also be dropped for free (if necessary). With Hill and Adams as the top two WRs, moving on from some higher priced Bench WRs is the way to go. Here are the players available to drop.
| Player | Position | Team | Contract Change | Contract Years Left | Annual Salary |
| Curtis Samuel | WR | WAS | No | 1 | $11,500,000 |
| Michael Gallup | WR | DAL | No | 4 | $11,500,000 |
| Noah Brown | WR | HOU | Yes | 1 | $2,600,000 |
| Mack Hollins | WR | ATL | Yes | 1 | $2,500,000 |
| James Washington | WR | FA | Yes | 0 | $1,187,500 |
| Demarcus Robinson | WR | FA | Yes | 0 | $1,035,000 |
The second move is to trim at least $14 million by dropping two of the six WRs listed above.
- Move #2: Drop either Curtis Samuel or Michael Gallup plus Noah Brown or Mack Hollins. Dropping Samuel would cost $2.875 million Dynasty Dollars (25% of his remaining $11.5 million salary), while Gallup has $46 million remaining on his contract. Using one of the team’s two available Amnesty Provisions is the way to get rid of Gallup.
- Salary reduction = $14,000,000 or $14,100,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = either $2.875 million or an Amnesty Provision
This team has an interesting TE room of five players.
| Player | Position | Team | Contract Change | Contract Years Left | Annual Salary |
| Evan Engram | TE | JAC | Yes | 1 | $11,345,000 |
| Noah Fant | TE | SEA | Yes | 1 | $6,850,000 |
| Jordan Akins | TE | CLE | Yes | 2 | $1,950,000 |
| Pat Freiermuth | TE | PIT | No | 2 | $1,507,045 |
| Foster Moreau | TE | FA | Yes | 0 | $752,098 |
Due to a cancer diagnosis, Moreau has retired (at least temporarily), so he can be dropped for free. Akins is nothing more than a backup TE to David Njoku ($13,687,500) in Cleveland and not worth the roster spot. On the other hand, this team has a solid starter in Pat Freiermuth and can afford to move either Evan Engram or Noah Fant via trade (preferred method) or free drop. A trade could yield additional draft picks since this team is still trying to work its way under the salary cap. However, as long as the trade doesn’t increase the team’s salary, it can be made. Here are the moves to restructure the TE situation for this orphan team.
- Move #3: Dropping both Foster Moreau and Jordan Akins.
- Salary reduction = $2,702,098
- Dynasty Dollars cost = $0
- Move #4: Trading or dropping either Evan Engram or Noah Fant. Despite his higher salary, Engram should draw more trade interest but if nothing materializes on the trade front, then dropping Fant is the preferred option since Engram was TE5 in Dynasty Owner last year, while Fant was TE17.
- Salary reduction = $6,850,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = $0
For some reason, this orphan has five kickers and all of them are eligible to be dropped for free.
| Player | Position | Team | Contract Change | Contract Years Left | Annual Salary |
| Jason Myers | K | SEA | Yes | 4 | $5,275,000 |
| Ryan Succop | K | FA | Yes | 0 | $4,000,000 |
| Joey Slye | K | FA | No | 0 | $2,433,000 |
| Chase McLaughlin | K | FA | No | 0 | $965,000 |
| Matthew Wright | K | FA | Yes | 0 | $895,000 |
McLaughlin signed with Tampa Bay for a reported $1.13 million, but it’s not been officially posted on Spotrac, so he’s still listed as a free agent in Dynasty Owner with his 2022 salary of $965,000. As a result, this team should keep him and expect a salary in the $1.13 million range. Succop was cut by Tampa Bay and Slye hasn’t signed yet with anyone, so we can drop both of them safely.
- Move #5: Dropping both free agent kickers still sitting on this roster.
- Salary reduction = $6,433,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = $0
All of that roster trimming has reduced the roster by seven players and a total of nearly $35 million in salary. For a final move, this team needs to either drop Mack Hollins or Noah Brown (whoever survived the cut in Move #2) or move on from Jason Myers. At $5.275 million per year, Myers is the choice here as there is a viable replacement for him in this league’s Free Agent Auction in new 49ers kicker Zane Gonzalez ($2,250,000).
- Move #6: Dropping Jason Myers and adding Zane Gonzalez to replace him.
- Salary reduction = $3,025,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = at least $1 million (to bid on Gonzalez)
The final roster for this orphan team is 23 players and the three draft picks for a team salary of $157.18 million. Sure, the team is only under the salary cap by around $180,000 and it might get even closer depending on McLaughlin’s new salary, but it’s under and that’s all that matters now. One final roster move, such as dropping Demarcus Robinson or James Washington once they get a new contract or dropping Green Bay RB Tyler Goodson ($856,000) who is still on this team’s roster, can be made to find room for the rookie contract salaries of those draft picks and if McLaughlin’s contract exceeds $1.145 million.
Example #2: Orphan Team Over $80 Million Over Cap
The second orphan team needs to cut $82.6 million of salary and got into this situation because a baker’s dozen (13) players were either free agents and got new contracts, had a fifth year option picked up, or received a franchise tag. Here is the other available information about this team.
- 2023 Finish: Fourth place – lost playoff semi-finals and third place game
- Current Roster Size: 31
- Current Salaries: $239.96 million
- Dynasty Dollars: $14.83 million
- Amnesty Provisions: 2
- 2023 Draft Picks: 1.09 and 3.09
- No 2024 second round rookie draft picks
- All 2025 and 2026 draft picks are intact
The starting point for this team is looking at all of the new contracts that can be dropped for free and seeing if there are some easy choices there.
| Player | Position | Team | Contract Change | Contract Years Left | Annual Salary |
| Daniel Jones | QB | NYG | Yes | 4 | $40,000,000 |
| Tyreek Hill | WR | MIA | Yes | 4 | $30,000,000 |
| Geno Smith | QB | SEA | Yes | 3 | $25,000,000 |
| Marquise Brown | WR | ARI | Yes | 1 | $13,413,000 |
| Evan Engram | TE | JAC | Yes | 1 | $11,345,000 |
| Jakobi Meyers | WR | LV | Yes | 3 | $11,000,000 |
| Saquon Barkley | RB | NYG | Yes | 1 | $10,091,000 |
| Hayden Hurst | TE | CAR | Yes | 3 | $7,250,000 |
| Miles Sanders | RB | CAR | Yes | 4 | $6,350,000 |
| Jamaal Williams | RB | NO | Yes | 3 | $4,000,000 |
| Philip Walker | QB | CHI | Yes | 2 | $2,075,000 |
| Eddy Pineiro | K | CAR | Yes | 2 | $2,050,000 |
| Donald Parham | TE | LAC | Yes | 2 | $1,267,500 |
It doesn’t appear that there is a simple way to cut $82.6 million in salaries without getting rid of Daniel Jones, Tyreek Hill and Geno Smith ($95 million). It’s going to take quite a bit of work to keep one or two of those players.
In addition to the dozen new contracts, this orphan team also has six players who are currently free agents and since they have had a contract change, each could be dropped for free as well. Those players are as follows:
| Player | Position | Team | Contract Change | Contract Years Left | Annual Salary |
| Leonard Fournette | RB | FA | Yes | 0 | $7,000,000 |
| Jarvis Landry | WR | FA | Yes | 0 | $3,000,000 |
| Mark Ingram | RB | FA | Yes | 0 | $2,500,000 |
| Randy Bullock | K | FA | Yes | 0 | $2,340,000 |
| Damien Williams | RB | FA | Yes | 0 | $1,620,000 |
| James Washington | WR | FA | Yes | 0 | $1,187,500 |
This gives us a nice pool of 19 players to drop without paying a single Dynasty Dollar in drop fees. Having Jones get a salary increase of almost $33.6 million and Geno Smith’s salary going up by $21.5 million means QB is the place to start cutting salary for this team.
- Move #1: The first move for me would be to get rid of Daniel Jones as this team also has Justin Herbert ($6,644,688). Herbert and Geno Smith are a solid pair of Dynasty Owner QBs with a combined salary lower than Jones’ salary.
- Salary reduction = $40,000,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = $0
- Move #2: Philip Walker is not needed as he is going to be the backup to Justin Fields ($4,717,989) in Chicago and didn’t play well enough when given a chance with Carolina the past few seasons.
- Salary reduction = $2,075,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = $0
- Move #3: An easy savings of a little over $4.1 million can be had by cutting a pair of injured free agent RBs who are over 30 years old. It’s time to say bye-bye to both Damien Williams and Mark Ingram.
- Salary reduction = $4,120,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = $0
- Move #4: This move is similar to move #3 above as both Jarvis Landry and James Washington were of little use to Dynasty Owners in 2022. Out of the two, Washington has less value and should be cut first, but his salary is lower, and it appears likely both will need to be cut to get under the salary cap.
- Salary reduction = $4,187,500
- Dynasty Dollars cost = $0
- Move #5: Dropping a free agent kicker with a $2.34 million seems pretty obvious, so Randy Bullock gets dropped as well.
- Salary reduction = $2,340,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = $0
Things are looking pretty good with seven players and $52,722,500 in salary dropped already. However, this team has only 24 players plus two 2023 rookie draft picks and $29.88 million in salary to drop. Moving Tyreek Hill and his $30 million per year contract would do the job, but just letting go of the WR2 last year for nothing seems like a bad idea. Maybe there’s a trade partner out there but time is running short to rely on another team to save this orphan from the automatic chopping block.
It’s time to get creative! This orphan has three quality TEs in Hayden Hurst, Evan Engram and Dallas Goedert ($14,250,000). While dropping Goedert would reap the biggest salary savings, it would cost an Amnesty Provision. Both Hurst and Engram can be let go for free. Engram’s salary is $4.095 million more, but he’s rostered in 98.72% of Dynasty Owner leagues versus 75.54% for Hurst. Dropping Hurst seems to be the better option.
- Move #6: Dropping Hayden Hurst for free and keeping Engram and Goedert as a pair of highly paid TEs who both finished in the top 12 among TEs last year.
- Salary reduction = $7,250,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = $0
Both Jakobi Meyers and Marquise Brown should have some trade value, even if it’s just a third round pick sometime in the future. This orphan team has a solid base of WRs already with Tyreek Hill, Mike Evans ($16,500,000), DeVonta Smith ($5,035,348) and Chris Olave ($4,817,969) to fill the two Starting WR positions, the FLEX and one Bench WR spot. The 1.09 rookie draft pick is a perfect spot to snag a replacement for Meyers and Brown for the second Bench spot at a much lower salary.
- Move #7: Getting rid of both Jakobi Meyers and Marquise Brown as they are both luxuries for the new Dynasty Owner of this orphan team.
- Salary reduction = $24,413,000
- Dynasty Dollars cost = $0
After all of this, a total of ten players and $84,385,500 have been trimmed from this roster. The roster is now 21 players, two draft picks (assuming that no 2023 draft picks were acquired by trading Meyers and/or Brown) and a salary cap figure just under of $155.6 million. This team still needs two more players to fill roster spots and now has about $1.76 million in salary cap space. Getting a 2023 draft pick for either Meyers or Brown (or hopefully one for each) would take care of the roster minimum issue.
However, if those trades don’t materialize, there are obviously many players earning the NFL league minimum of $750,000 or widely available players with low salaries who could be added. The following players are available in this league’s Free Agent Auction, and each has a salary under $1 million meaning that they can be added to this roster along with a minimum salary player.
- DeeJay Dallas (RB – SEA) – 1 year/ $947,350
- Brevin Jordan (TE – HOU) – 2 years/$958,046
- Quez Watkins (WR – PHI) – 1 year/$866,166
Watkins may be the best choice as a handcuff for DeVonta Smith if Smith happens to miss any time for the Eagles.
A final move is also possible by dropping Donald Parham and replacing him with either one of the following players.
- Matt Breida (RB – NYG) – 1 year/$1,400,000
- Isaiah McKenzie (WR – IND) – 1 year/$1,232,500
Breida is merely a handcuff for Saquon Barkley, but since Barkley has been injured quite a bit in the past and is one of the key players on this roster, it might be a good move to have his potential replacement filling a roster spot. The combination of adding Watkins, Breida and a minimum salary player would leave this team barely $10,000 under the salary cap. They would still need to trim more salary for rookies, but that problem can be handled another day and by the Dynasty Owner who actually purchases this orphan team.
Conclusion
Hopefully seeing how I reduced the salary cap of these orphan teams will help some of you to think creatively getting your Dynasty Owner team under the salary cap. Fortunately for those of you with teams over the salary cap, you have full access to the available free agents in your league’s Free Agent Auction. You can also look at other rosters to find trade partners, which I wasn’t able to do. With only a couple of days to go before all Dynasty Owner teams need to be under the $157.36 million salary cap, there is still time to get a trade done that can help you avoid dropping a player who might be valuable to someone else.
An assist and thank you goes out to Head Commissioner Nick Larmore who sent me screenshots of the top available players in the Free Agent Auction in the leagues of these orphan team, so I was able to find a couple of cheaper available players to make this exercise more realistic. While it would have been easier to just drop Jones for the first orphan team, dropping him while picking up Cousins and then finding other roster moves was the better strategy so the team could keep its top players. For the second orphan team, a new Dynasty Owner could use the Free Agent Auction to help them cut more players and maybe keep a few of the players who got big contracts in NFL free agency that I had to drop.
Thanks for reading and being a Dynasty Owner. Even though we are closing in on four weeks since the 2023 Dynasty Owner league year started, we are still on our off-season content schedule. In addition to this article, Matt Morrison – The Jerk has an article that will be available this week, while Nate Christian and Jay Pounds had articles published last week and are on tap with articles next week too.
Jay and I will have a new Dynasty Owner podcast this week and there should be a Livestream on Friday at lunchtime. Last week’s Livestream was on Thursday afternoon and if you missed it because of the date change or the Passover or Easter holiday, you can go watch it on the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel. Finally, don’t forget to follow Dynasty Owner on Twitter. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner
Follow us on Twitter: @SteveVT33 and @Dynasty_Owner