Salary Cap Update: Which UDFAs got the most guaranteed money?

It's always interesting to consider how much guaranteed money the undrafted rookies received, because a large amount to any individual typically indicates the team has plans for the player to at least be on the practice squad.

This year, only one undrafted free agent got a significant amount of guarantees. Wide receiver Caullin Lacy received a $15K signing bonus and has $247,500 in guaranteed salary.

Last year, the Jets had 10 undrafted rookies with six figures in guarantees, including three with over $200K (two of whom are no longer with the team with the lone exception being Payton Page). This year, they simply aren't outlaying the same kind of guaranteed cash.

The second highest amount of guarantees is just $21,250 for cornerback Mo Bamba, including a $7,500 signing bonus. That was less than all 14 of last year's initial undrafted rookie signings. (They did add two more after the rookie minicamp without any guarantees, which is not unusual.)

Next up is Malik McClain with $18,750 in guarantees including a $5,000 signing bonus.

Four other undrafted rookies (Xavier Hill, Curtis Chase, Sam Scott and Kendrick Blackshire) also had a $5,000 signing bonus with Blackshire the only one of the four to also receive some guaranteed salary (just $5,000).

The only other undrafted rookie with any guaranteed money is long snapper Garrison Grimes, who got a $1,000 signing bonus. The other four apparently didn't get any guaranteed money at all.

All told, the Jets committed to just $323,500 of guaranteed money for their undrafted rookies; a shockingly low number, especially since over three quarters of it relates to Lacy. By contrast, last year's undrafted rookie received a total of just over $2 million between them. That's over six times as much!

Clearly the Jets are in a different phase of their roster building plan at this time where they did not prioritize offering more money to secure top undrafted free agents, won't risk the same level of dead money cap hits and probably know that the roster will be stronger so there is less chance of any undrafted free agents making it anyway.

The rookie deals have not all been signed yet with respect to all of the draft picks. Darrell Jackson Jr. and Omar Cooper Jr. are the two that remain. Once these are done, the Jets should have about $25 million of cap space, although that's before accounting for the amount of current cap space that extending Breece Hall has created (approximately $3 million).

Note: The above number also doesn't account for the recent Tim Patrick and Landon Young signings, but these are probably for the minimum anyway so that number is unlikely to move.

For what it's worth, the NFLPA database currently has them right around that level at $27,713,232. This is currently the 10th highest amount of cap space in the league.

We'll bring the salary cap position fully up to date once these deals have been completed...