NFLPA cautions Redskins about spending, salary cap compliance

The NFL Players Association offered a public caution to the Redskins late Tuesday regarding their spending on player salaries when a spokesman e-mailed reporters details of its accounting of the team’s salary cap situation.

Teams must spend at least 89 percent of available salary cap space on player salaries over a four-year period, with the salary cap set at $123 million in 2013 and $133 million in 2014. The Redskins, according to the spokesman, spent just $99.4 million on player salaries in 2013 and $123.3 million in 2014, and in order to avoid a penalty, they would need to spend approximately $134 million of the projected $143 million salary cap for this coming season.

Should a team not be compliant with the salary cap structure, it could be asked to make an additional payment equal to that discrepancy to the players it has under contract.

Washington faced a salary cap penalty in 2012 and 2013, restricting it from spending $36 million, spread evenly over those two seasons, because of the way it structured contracts in 2010. The spokesman did not respond to questions about how that salary cap penalty would affect accounting toward the four-year average.