With the NFL salary cap breaking the $300 million ceiling this season, one might think it would be kind of a walk in the park to pull together an all-star roster that would fit under that upper limit in 2026. And it would have been -- if all we needed were 22 starters.
As was true last year, the most challenging aspect was figuring out how to arrange the best possible combination of players. And I wanted to do a better job than I did in 2025 of squeezing the most possible value out of each opening, from 1 to 53.
Which made the whole project even more engrossing than it was a year ago, to the point that I found myself trying to find the best $3 million pass-rushers while waiting for appointments or in line at the pharmacy. If you are looking for something football-related to obsess over this offseason, I would highly recommend making your own spreadsheet and trying to come up with a better list of names than I have here.
Before we dig in, I have to remind you that this roster cannot actually be bought in real life. Putting together a non-theoretical team involves drafting players, negotiating long-term deals and accounting for factors like future cap hits and dead money. I didn't have to worry about any of that, or any deals that are agreed to or moves that are made after today's date, which came in handy with some newly extension-eligible youngers. The goal was to make the best possible use of the cap this year, using only the cap hits for 2026 -- which still does, I think, illustrate something about the limitations teams have to deal with and the occasionally surprising short-term affordability of some of the game's biggest talents.
Here are some of the other ground rules I followed, adapted from the parameters previously developed (taken on this challenge) by my former colleague Anthony Holzman-Escareno:
- A maximum of 24 players on rookie contracts were allowed, with the following per-round limitations: four who were first-round picks, four who were second-round picks, four who were third-round picks and up to 12 players drafted between Rounds 4 and 7. Players on rookie contracts are noted below, along with the round they were selected in. For example, a first-round pick is marked as R-1.
- Players set to play on fifth-year rookie options in 2026 and undrafted players did not count against the rookie-contract cap; such players are so noted.
- All cap figures were sourced from .
- Players are listed with the age they will be on Sept. 9, when the 2026 NFL season is expected to kick off.
Here's how the final numbers tallied up:
- Total salary cap: $301,200,000
- Salary-cap space used: $300,348,340
- Total space remaining: $851,660
And here's the starting lineup:
| OFFENSE | PLAYER | DEFENSE | PLAYER |
|---|---|---|---|
| QB | Patrick Mahomes | EDGE | Myles Garrett |
| RB | Bijan Robinson | EDGE | Will Anderson |
| WR | Ja'Marr Chase | IDL | Byron Murphy |
| WR | Jaxon Smith-Njigba | IDL | Kobie Turner |
| WR | Puka Nacua | LB | Jack Campbell |
| TE | Trey McBride | LB | Edgerrin Cooper |
| LT | Garett Bolles | CB | Derek Stingley |
| LG | Tyler Smith | CB | Trent McDuffie |
| C | Luke Wattenberg | S | Kyle Hamilton |
| RG | Quinn Meinerz | S | Xavier McKinney |
| RT | Darnell Wright | NB | Cooper DeJean |
Now, the full breakdown:
QUARTERBACK (2)
$35,953,888 total (11.9% of cap)
2026 cap number: $34,653,888
2026 cap number: $1,300,000
When doing this exercise last year, I was giddy to pick Patrick Mahomes, thinking he would basically guarantee a trip to the Super Bowl for my high-priced make-believe team. And then he had probably the least-Mahomesian season of his life, putting up underwhelming numbers while the team around him flopped to a 6-11 finish. Mahomes also suffered the most serious injury of his pro career, which knocked him out for the season just a few months before the Seahawks won it all with Sam Darnold. So is it really that smart or safe to go all in on a Super QB again? Might it be better to save some scratch with someone like Brock Purdy, who costs a little over $10 million less against the cap ($23.7 million) than Mahomes? Or how about one of those rookie-contract QBs everyone dreams of building around, like Caleb Williams ($10.8 million) or Drake Maye ($10 million)?
I went through all the scenarios and still ended up with, surprise, one of the best QBs of all time. The biggest risk is taking everyone at their word when they say Mahomes' recovery from knee surgery is going well. Presuming he's healthy enough to be on the field, Mahomes is still probably the best candidate to pull a "2007 Tom Brady" with the collection of Randy Mosses on hand here, even if he's not as mobile as we're used to at first. And he's still a comparative steal, with 10 other QBs -- including Darnold -- costing more against the cap this season. Kyler Murray's size and injury history make me a little nervous to rely on him as a backup, but he's also capable of playing like a top-10 QB for a dirt-cheap cap hit, thanks to all the dead money parked in Arizona.
RUNNING BACKS (4)
$14,848,432 total (4.9% of cap)
2026 cap number: $6,986,810 (R-1)
2026 cap number: $5,677,999 (R-1)
2026 cap number: $1,037,035 (R-7)
2026 cap number: $1,146,588 (R-5)
Let's say you've got one brain-breaking talent at running back who can generate big plays seemingly at will. What do you do when he has to take a breather? For this squad, the answer is easy: just slide in your other brain-breaking talent who can generate big plays seemingly at will. Between the two of them, Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs totaled 4,137 scrimmage yards last season, or just 34 shy of what the entire Raiders offense finished with. Who gets to be the thunder? Who gets to be the lightning? What's the difference? Like the poor sap getting zapped, it will be all the same to anyone trying to stop them. It's a bit of a lucky technicality that neither player has signed what will surely be a lucrative extension yet, but if we weren't exploiting lucky technicalities, we would be losing the salary-cap game. Kyle Monangai and Tyrone Tracy provide load-carrying capabilities at Day 3 prices.
WIDE RECEIVERS (6)
$52,614,188 total (17.5% of cap)
2026 cap number: $26,171,176
2026 cap number: $10,371,329
2026 cap number: $5,828,245 (R-5)
2026 cap number: $4,878,200
2026 cap number: $4,250,000
2026 cap number: $1,115,238 (R-4)
When Jaylen Waddle and Mike Evans are fourth and fifth on the receiver depth chart, things are going alright. The long-term consequences of the Broncos' trade for Waddle are not for us to worry about; all that matters for the purposes of this roster is the chump change being charged to Denver in 2026, with the Dolphins eating of dead money and further cap pain at least . As competitive as Evans no doubt is in real life, wouldn't at least a small part of him enjoy getting to pick his spots behind three heavy hitters in their primes? Giving Chase to Mahomes is basically worth any price, especially when the recently extended JSN is still in the cap-friendly portion of his contract. Nacua is heading into the final year of his rookie pact and has had troubling in recent months, but he's also one of the best receivers in the game and counts for less against the cap than our starting right tackle below. Between these three, Mahomes should have somewhere interesting to go with the ball on pretty much every pass play. Dike gets to show off the punt- and kick-return skills (2,427 all-purpose yards and two TDs) that made him a first-team All-Pro as a rookie.
TIGHT ENDS (3)
$11,318,528 total (3.8% of cap)
2026 cap number: $8,701,000
2026 cap number: $1,532,474 (R-3)
2026 cap number: $1,085,054 (R-5)
This is the perfect time of year to find a nice shady spot next to a cool stream and do a little daydreaming. Like, say, about Mahomes throwing to Trey McBride, who earned first-team All-Pro honors as the top pass-catching option in Arizona's otherwise meh offense. Or to Harold Fannin Jr., who provided a McBride-like spark in the Browns' own moribund attack. Or Jackson Hawes, blazing a path for Mahomes or Robinson or Gibbs with . Ah, summer.
OFFENSIVE LINE (9)
$45,948,659 total (15.3% of cap)
2026 cap number: $8,452,000
2026 cap number: $10,302,300
2026 cap number: $3,572,000
2026 cap number: $9,208,200
2026 cap number: $6,671,722 (R-1)
2026 cap number: $1,206,245 (R-5)
2026 cap number: $4,000,000
2026 cap number: $1,269,968 (R-4)
2026 cap number: $1,266,224 (R-4)
I would have liked to drop $20 million-plus on at least one premium player at each position. I just couldn't get around the fact of needing more than 15 players on the roster. Penei Sewell ($28 million) was the most tempting potential luxury acquisition on the offensive line, but -- and I hate to use language like this in a piece about spending to the limit -- the savings opportunity with Garett Bolles made too much sense. For $20 million less, left tackle will be manned by a first-team All-Pro who registered the best pressures-allowed rate (5.9%) last season of any tackle with 500-plus pass-blocking snaps, per Next Gen Stats. Whether or not Tyler Smith stays inside or kicks outside in 2026, he looks good here at left guard, matching Bolles with the best pressure rate allowed among guards (3.8%) to reach that play-time threshold -- and hey, whaddaya know, Quinn Meinerz is two spots behind Smith (4.9%).
Luke Wattenberg's cap hit doesn't rise into the double digits until the final season of the extension he signed, and it's at an especially sweet $3.6 million this year. So, again, though I would have really enjoyed picking the most expensive center available (Creed Humphrey, $18.1 million), I had no choice but to rock with Wattenberg, who was credited by NGS with just 23 pressures and zero sacks allowed in 2025. Wright blossomed into a second-team All-Pro while helping the Bears keep Caleb Williams clean enough to play like a star.
The backups could easily start on any other roster, which I can say with authority because they have started on their actual rosters, with Rasheed Walker being the only one of the bunch facing a camp competition heading into 2026. Warren McClendon, Tanor Bortolini and Mason McCormick belong to one of my favorite subgroups of players: well-developed late-round picks.
EDGE RUSHERS (6)
$48,793,636 total (16.2% of cap)
2026 cap number: $9,140,000
2026 cap number: $13,197,330
2026 cap number: $10,146,400
2026 cap number: $8,421,200
2026 cap number: $3,917,711 (R-3)
2026 cap number: $3,970,995
There's a lot going on here. First, there's the almost obscenely low cap hit for the best defensive player alive. I would have rostered Myles Garrett no matter what, but Cleveland is eating so much following his trade to Los Angeles that he's costing the Rams a pittance relative to his talent, at least for this year. Which allows for the freedom to add three of the best young pass-rushers in the league. The numbers behind extensions recently signed by Will Anderson Jr. (three years, $150 million), Aidan Hutchinson (four years, $180 million) and Nik Bonitto (four years, $106 million) might look boffo in the long term, but they each carry exceedingly sober cap charges for 2026. Diaby is eminently worthy of a rookie contract spot, given how hard it is to find someone who produces like him (68 pressures last season, tied for eighth-most in the NFL, per NGS) for less than $4 million against the cap. I had a chance to pull off some real chicanery by adding Jared Verse, the two-time Pro Bowler who went back to Cleveland in the Garrett swap, at his lowered post-trade cap number of $2.2 million. I'd be getting the best of both sides in this deal while escaping the worst, thanks to the the dead money absorbed by the Browns for Garrett and Verse, which would of course be impossible to do in real life. But I didn't want to lose a first-round pick elsewhere, so I decided to give a chance to Alex Wright, the other edge rusher who will have a shot at helping to fill the void left by Garrett.
INTERIOR DEFENSIVE LINE (5)
$16,404,188 total (5.4% of cap)
2025 cap number: $4,154,267 (R-3)
2026 cap number: $4,386,306 (R-1)
2026 cap number: $1,663,404 (R-2)
2025 cap number: $3,693,446 (R-7)
2026 cap number: $2,506,765
With this roster composition, stalwarts like Jeffery Simmons ($25.6 million against the cap in 2026), Quinnen Williams ($21.6 million) and even Zach Allen ($16.5 million) are out of reach. But that's OK, because I'm still walking away with two of the top six-ranked DTs in QB pressures, per NGS: Kobie Turner (52 pressures, fourth) and Byron Murphy II (46, sixth). I also get two of the seven DTs to tally 35-plus runs tops with a missed-tackle rate below 10%: Murphy (36 run stops, 6.3% missed-tackle rate) and Tommy Togiai (38 run stops, 7% missed-tackle rate). This was where I started to slide into some classic stuffed-shirt bean-counting, so caught up in metrics and dollar signs that I initially neglected to get any Real Big Guys for this position group. Luckily, salt-of-the-earth colleague Gennaro Filice reminded me that a Real Big Guy would be good to have on my football defense, so I found room for T'Vondre Sweat, whose Real Big Guy credentials (6-foot-4, 366 pounds) are unimpeachable. All the better if Sweat rediscovers his rookie form after an offseason trade from Tennessee to the Jets. Like Turner, Moro Ojomo (29 pressures, six sacks in 2025) has an easy case to return from last year's squad.
LINEBACKERS (5)
$12,182,931 total (4.04% of cap)
2026 cap number: $4,794,239
2026 cap number: $2,681,909 (R-2)
2026 cap number: $2,345,160 (R-2)
2026 cap number: $1,078,000 (UDFA)
2026 cap number: $1,283,623 (R-4)
Last year, I built the LB crew around premium-priced veteran stud Fred Warner, who would have been worth it -- if an ankle injury hadn't limited him to six games. I didn't pass on Warner lightly this year, even if he is 29 and hasn't seen game action since last October. But Jack Campbell (who snagged a contract extension after pacing the Lions with 166 tackles and the NFL with 74 run stops), Carson Schwesinger (the reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year) and Edgerrin Cooper (who finished with 117 tackles, the second-most in Green Bay) are similarly splurge-worthy talents who can be had at a combined cap hit ($9.8 million) that comes in $8.1 million under what Warner would have cost ($17.9 million). This, I have to begrudgingly admit, is the good kind of pencil-pushing. Cedric Gray became the first Titans linebacker in two seasons to get to 100-plus tackles (160) in 2025, while tying for the fourth-most run stops (63) in the NFL, per NGS. The combination of Omar Speights' production (79 tackles, fifth-most on the Rams) and cap hit in Year 3 as a former undrafted free agent makes him a solid value to round out the group.
CORNERBACKS (6)
$32,199,827 total (10.7% of cap)
2026 cap number: $10,791,000
2026 cap number: $10,800,000
2026 cap number: $2,531,897 (R-2)
2026 cap number: $3,500,000
2026 cap number: $1,168,930 (R-5)
2026 cap number: $3,408,000
Taking advantage of quirky accounting is as important to filling out this pretend roster as it to building a real NFL team. There are examples throughout, notably at edge rusher, linebacker and (as you'll see) safety, but the most shenanigan-reliant position group might be cornerback. Derek Stingley Jr. and Trent McDuffie are two All-Pro-caliber studs who reached the Second Contract promised land -- and yet, thanks to the ways their deals were structured (or, in Stingley's case, restructured), neither player takes up more than $11 million of space this season. Cooper DeJean made this squad last summer as a super valuable rookie. Then he received his first career first-team All-Pro nod as a leader of the Eagles' elite D. So, welcome back, Cooper. Tarheeb Still didn't have the interception luck he had in 2024, dropping from four picks to zero last season, but he earned his return thanks to strong production (seven passes defensed, 83.7 passer rating allowed, per NGS) and irresistible cap hit. And while Nahshon Wright and Riq Woolen lack ironclad track records, the deals they inked this offseason make it pretty appealing to bet on them hitting their ceilings as backups.
SAFETIES (4)
$23,209,063 total (7.7% of cap)
2026 cap number: $10,682,604
2026 cap number: $9,860,235
2026 cap number: $1,406,490 (R-3)
2026 cap number: $1,259,734 (R-4)
Last year, Kyle Hamilton anchored the safety group of this imaginary squad as a rookie-contract steal. This year, he gets to do the same as a post-pay day vet. Many thanks to everyone who negotiated his extension last August in such a way that he could make this roster again. The same goes for those who Xavier McKinney's reported agreement to lower his cap hit in 2026. Just three safeties last season (Coby Bryant, Calen Bullock and Jessie Bates) logged 500-plus coverage snaps with a better passer rating allowed than McKinney (52.7, per NGS). Xavier Watts (five picks as a rookie last season) and Malik Mustapha (who finished fourth in San Francisco with 76 tackles) join the Overqualified Backups Club.
SPECIAL TEAMS (3)
$6,875,000 total (2.3% of cap)
2026 cap number: $3,400,000 (UDFA)
2026 cap number: $1,375,000
2026 cap number: $1,375,000
In the end, I could only afford three All-Pros on special teams: returner/receiver Chimere Dike (first team), kicker Brandon Aubrey (second team) and long snapper Ross Matiscik (first team). Tommy Townsend clearly knows how to pin opponents inside their own 20- (on 30 punts with the Texans last season, tied for third in the NFL) and 10-yard lines (a league-high 16 punts). Between that and the cap hit on the deal that landed him with the TItans, he's a nice draw for a super team that should get plenty used to operating on the opponents' side of the field.
