Agent's Take: 2024 ultimate 53-man roster that's the best team money can buy

A look at our ultimate 53-man roster, with salary cap and draft restrictions taken into account

By Joel Corry Sep 12, 2024 at 8:00 am ET• 15 min read

Assembling the ultimate 53-man roster is a pretty simple endeavor without any parameters. It starts getting tricky when operating under a salary cap. Roster construction becomes more complicated with other restrictions designed to prevent a squad from resembling last season's All-Pro team. The constraints bring more realism to selection process. The ground rules are as follows.

Parameters

• The salary cap for the roster is $262.7 million although the actual NFL salary cap is $255.4 million for this year. The number being used approximates the average adjusted salary cap according to NFLPA data. Each NFL team's working salary cap varies largely because unused cap room can be carried over from one year to the next. For example, the San Francisco 49ers have the NFL's highest adjusted salary cap at just under $297.36 million, largely thanks to carrying over $36.395 million of cap room, which is the most in the league. The Super Bowl LVIII champion Kansas City Chiefs have the lowest at $253.064 million, which is $2.336 million below the league-wide number. Situations like this typically occur when incentives earned during the previous season that weren't counting on the cap get accounted for without sufficient cap room carrying over from the prior year to make up the difference.
• The NFL Draft is an essential element of roster building for NFL teams. It is here also. One player from each round of the 2024 draft must be on the roster. The number requirement drops by one player for each year of the preceding three drafts (2021-2023). The limit of one player per round remains. Thus, only four 2021 draft picks are required. There's one other draft pick constraint. Only one 2020 first-round pick whose fifth-year option was exercised is allowed. This means CeeDee Lamb and Justin Jefferson can't both be selected at wide receiver. Selecting a 2020 first-round pick isn't a necessity.
• The backups at each position are limited to players who aren't established starters, were reserves in 2023 or lost a starting job this year. Young veterans cracking the lineup for the first time are eligible as reserves. Those starting last season only because of an injury are also fair game as backups. Players competing for starting jobs in the preseason or where there's a "by committee approach" at a position, usually running back, are also acceptable. A backfield containing Christian McCaffrey and Derrick Henry, 2023's leaders in rushing yards, is prohibited since both are workhorses or every-down running backs.
• Choosing a player who was given a franchise or transition designation in 2024 is optional. However, only one player receiving a 2024 designation can be selected.

Roster building philosophy

The initial version of the team was done without paying attention to cost. Over $280 million of cap space was used. Multiple roster adjustments were necessary in order to comply with the constraints.

A concerted effort was also made to keep cap numbers under $15 million. There are only three players with cap figures of more than $15 million. There were plenty of players I would have liked to include but were luxuries that couldn't be afforded because of cost. For example, quarterback Patrick Mahomes (Chiefs), wide receiver Tyreek Hill (Miami Dolphins), edge rusher Maxx Crosby (Las Vegas Raiders), edge rusher T.J. Watt (Pittsburgh Steelers) and tight end Travis Kelce (Chiefs) weren't options because of $37,133,825, $31,919,926, $30,483,250, $30,420,899 and $19,551,944 cap numbers.

Selecting a high-level quarterback was the top priority since the NFL is a passer-driven league. A cap-friendly potential franchise quarterback is the most valuable commodity in the NFL. This is because of the roster flexibility provided by the low cap number. Choosing one was a necessity.