ATLANTA — The Atlanta Falcons started their salary cap purge after the NFL announced that the salary cap minimum would be set at $180 million for NFL teams this season.
This is a higher projection than what many insiders had believed. The working assumption all season has been $175 million.
Atlanta will have to make some moves this offseason to get under the cap and those moves began this week.
Aaron Freeman, the host of Locked On Falcons podcast dived into the news right away on Friday's episode.
The Associated Press reports the Falcons released two veterans, safety Ricardo Allen and defensive end Allen Bailey. The Falcons also waived quarterback Kurt Benkert, who spent the 2020 season on the Falcons’ practice squad.
The Falcons cleared $6.25 million by releasing Allen and another $4.5 million by cutting Bailey.
“Those three cuts freed up around $11.4 million in cap space. That puts the Falcons, based on overthecap.com, about $20 million dollars over that cap," Freeman said.
Freeman also warned fans that more moves like this will be coming as the Falcons fight to get under that number.
Locked On is a podcast network for local sports that produces daily podcasts about major professional sports leagues, as well as some college sports programs.