The 2023 NFL trade deadline is behind us, which means the next significant opportunity for major player movement will be the 2024 offseason. And if you think teams aren't already thinking about that, you're wrong.
In fact, the offseason is a little more than two months away for some franchises. Even the best ones have only have 3½ months to wait. Six teams -- the Saints, Chargers, Dolphins, Bills, Cowboys and Broncos -- currently project to be over the 2024 salary cap, and the 49ers are very close to being a seventh. And while the Bears, Patriots, Commanders and Raiders have comfortable cap space, they could all see significant changes in their decision-makers this offseason (or in the case of Las Vegas, already have).
All of this means there will be player movement -- trades, releases, pay cuts and decisions not to re-sign -- that surprise us. You can't predict surprises (if you could, they wouldn't be surprises), but we can look ahead, analyze cap and contract situations and come up with at least a few potential eyebrow-raisers that might come as a shock to people who have other things to do with their time besides dig in on NFL contracts all day.
So that's what we did here in this early-November, post-trade-deadline exercise -- looked ahead to the offseason and tried to predict some not-so-obvious "move-ons." I'm not saying all of these guys are getting cut, traded or whatever. I'm just looking at contracts, rosters and other circumstances and picking out what's possible. And in most cases, these players and teams could decide to part ways based on circumstances that don't necessarily have to do with how much they like each other.
Let's dive in on this partial list -- a snapshot, if you will -- that points to 14 players whose respective teams might surprisingly choose to move on next spring, listed in no particular order.
Jump to a player on a team:
CLE | DAL | DEN | GB | IND | KC
LAC | MIA | NO | SF | SEA