In the NFL teams are allowed to bank unused salary cap space and roll it to the next season. Field Yates of ESPN shared the number for each team in the league.
A look at how much cap space each NFL team rolled over to 2021, from the Browns ($30,366,604) to the Ravens ($586,822).
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) January 20, 2021
The NFL will audit these amounts after calculating incentives and cap credits from this year. The final amounts will be added to each team's cap for 2021. pic.twitter.com/cKen1bbgJ5
Only the Cleveland Browns will carry more money over than the $26,686,546 the Jets will add to their 2021 cap total.
Based on the way the Jets handled last offseason, it was pretty clear that 2020 was a reset/evaluation year. The team ended up carrying over $50 million dead money from past failed contracts. The roster just wasn’t good enough, and that $26.7 million was not going to make the team drastically better. Maybe they would have won 3 or 4 games instead of 2.
This money will help the Jets this offseason. The team will presumably take a more aggressive approach to free agency, albeit presumably less reckless than Tannenbaum/Maccagnan offseasons. The team is in position to improve quite a bit, and this rollover cap space is part of the reason.