Report: NFL Salary Cap For 2016 Forecast To Make Big Jump

We're still a few weeks away from the start of free agency, but if the speculation that just came across the Twitter is true, the Minnesota Vikings could have quite a bit of money to spent when the signing period gets underway.

I'm told the NFL's salary cap is expected to jump to at least $155M this year. Nearly $12M more than last year's ($143.28M).

— Rand Getlin (@Rand_Getlin) February 15, 2016

A $12 million jump in the salary cap is nothing to sneeze at, obviously. But what does it mean for the Minnesota Vikings?

Well, according to the folks from Over the Cap, the Vikings will have about $24.5 million in cap space to play with for free agency. . .and that's before they make any major decisions involving any of the following players:

-Wide receiver Mike Wallace ($11.5 million cap figure)
-Offensive tackle Matt Kalil ($11.09 million cap figure)
-Offensive tackle Phil Loadholt ($7.75 million cap figure)
-Center John Sullivan ($5.83 million cap figure)

Even if the Vikings decided to keep all of those players and/or not restructure any of their contracts (Wallace won't be back at $11.5M, I don't think), they'd still have plenty of money to do things with.

Sadly, that doesn't give the Vikings anywhere near the most salary cap space in the league. According to Over the Cap, the Jacksonville Jaguars will have $79.8 million to spend when free agency opens, which seems like a ridiculous figure and there's likely no way they can come anywhere close to spending all of it.

It will be interesting to see what Rick Spielman and Rob Brzezinski do to get the Vikings prepared for free agency. The team doesn't have a lot of in-house free agents that they have to place a high priority on, so they can concentrate on attempting to add talent and build on their NFC North-winning performance of 2015.