Updating the Jets' current salary cap position

Let's once again attempt to bring the Jets' cap position up to date as much as we can at this time.

The NFLPA has released their latest set of official numbers. However, these don't take into account all of the deals announced so far. According to these numbers Jets have 72 players under contract and $24.4 million of cap space.

However, the Jets actually have 77 players under contract (including Trumaine Johnson, who essentially remains under contract until June 1st because he was released as a post-June cut). We should hopefully be able to determine which contracts are not yet officially included.

OverTheCap.com has the Jets' current cap space figure at $15.5 million. That takes into account 74 of the 77 deals. The only three not included are for David Fales, Arthur Maulet and Jordan Jenkins.

The difference of $9 million between OTC's figures and the officially updated NFLPA numbers which only take into account officially completed paperwork likely relates to the deals for Patrick Onwuasor and George Fant. Onwuasor's one-year, $2 million deal was only announced last week and is therefore the most likely of the new deals not to be reflected in the NFLPA's numbers. Fant's contract numbers have been known for some time, but his signing is still not yet announced by the Jets and he doesn't appear on their official roster yet. Presumably this has just been a hold up in terms of getting the contract physically signed or with getting some of the contract language approved.

Of the three deals not yet taken into account in OTC's numbers Maulet and Fales' contracts are probably minimum salary deals or close to it so are unlikely to have a significant effect on the Jets' cap space.

Jordan Jenkins - who is the only one of the three who appears on the team's official roster - reportedly signed for $5 million over one year, although it's possible some of that will be in per-game roster bonuses. Either way, that should leave the Jets with about $11 million of cap space. Remember, though, that the Jets will get another $11 million of cap space when the Johnson cut becomes official on June 1st.

Some people have been asking if the Jets could afford to sign Jadeveon Clowney with his current asking price rumored to be dropping into the $16 million per range. Clearly they could, but this could limit them in terms of their ability to sign him to a standard one-year contract before June. They'd have to restructure other deals or add on a dummy year to make this possible.

One final note is that the only other player not on the team's official roster who should be is Charles Tapper. Tapper was placed on the non-football injury list last year but cleared waivers and should therefore remain with the team for the second year of his two-year contract.