Kansas City Chiefs should see more salary cap space, but everyone else will, too

Earlier this year the thinking was that the salary cap could be at $126 million this season. Recently, projections have risen to $130 million. The cap will be set at some point before free agency but the most recent update from ESPN's John Clayton projects the cap to be around $132 million.

According to ESPN's numbers, a $132 million cap would leave the Chiefs with approximately $8.6 million in cap space right now. (Note: Only the top 51 contracts are counted even though the Chiefs have 68 players under contract.)

Sounds great for the Chiefs, right? It is, yes, but it's not as great as you might think.

@adamteicher Now that the cap may go up to $134 mil instead of $130 or $132, does that give the @kcchiefs a better shot at keeping B Albert?

— Michael Enloe (@Real_MikeEnloe) February 25, 2014

@Real_MikeEnloe Dont think so. Everyone else's cap is going up too. So his price tag might as well. Chiefs still not swimming in cap room

— Adam Teicher (@adamteicher) February 25, 2014

The key to remember is that everyone else is getting this extra money, too. If the cap is at $132 million, the average cap space for every team right now is $19 million, according to Kevin Seifert of ESPN. So the Chiefs are still far behind everyone else at just over $8 million based on this projection.

The contracts for the rookies are all essentially set. Now that free agents see this extra cap space out there, the price tag on them probably goes up. What this money probably does more than anything is gives the Chiefs more flexibility in signing their own free agents, rather than those on the open market.