Scott Pioli Clarifies Salary Cap Confusion

Kansas City Chiefs GM Scott Pioli appeared on The Boarder Patrol this morning on 810 Sports and while he addressed a number of topics ranging from Stanford Routt to Dwayne Bowe, one great bit was where he explained the current confusion about the team’s salary cap.

For a couple of weeks, various sources have been reporting that the Chiefs have around $63 million in cap room, give or take a few million. These sources include SI.com’s Peter King, Pro Football Talk and even ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Over the weekend, however, the Kansas City Star released an article, complete with math, indicating that the Chiefs have about $37 million in cap space.

So which is it?

According to Pioli, the Star has it right.

As Pioli explained it, while the current books in the league office may show that the Chiefs are $60 million under the expected 2012 salary cap, there are some figures that have not yet been accounted for.

For instance, Pioli said that certain players have escalators and incentives that have yet to hit the team’s cap. He said that seven players have about $18 million in escalators that have yet to show up. He also said the team owes another $5 million in incentives. That adds up to about $25 million, which if subtracted from the $62 million figure we’ve seen tossed around, take the team down to about $37 million, which matches up with what was being reported by The Star.

Now, as the great Herm Edwards once said, “don’t get it twisted.” The Chiefs still have plenty of cap money to make some moves this offseason and they will still be likely one of the teams with the most flexibility but they won’t have anywhere in the neighborhood of $60 million when it is all said and done.