Dead Money
 

By my math, there is nearly a billion dollars in dead money on NFL caps this year.

Over $828 million.

Nearly a billion dollars spent by 32 NFL teams on players that no longer play for the team.

Analyzing these dead caps is fascinating to me this year -- in part because the Chiefs have absolutely lapped the entire league in how little dead money they've spent.

Starting with the good guys, the Chiefs are actually 2nd in the least dead money at $5.9m -- the Rams are first at $4.2m. However, $3.4m of that is on Chris Jones, who, last I checked, is still a Chief.

That leaves MVS at $2m, and less than $200,000 each on Darian Kinnard, Keondre Coburn, and Joshua Kaindoh.

All told, that puts the Chiefs non-Jones dead money at $2,436,500. That is almost half the Rams number, and is just a demonstration that Veach and the Chiefs sign an absurdly small number of contracts that they come to regret.

And if you're wondering, combined with his active cap hit, Chris Jones total 2024 cap hit is $11m. So.

Anyway, speaking of contracts that teams regret, the #1 team in dead money in 2024 are the Vikings at a whopping $57m:

• Kirk Cousins at $28.5m
• Danielle Hunter at $14.9m
• Marcus Davinport at $6.8m
• Dalvin Cook at $3.1m

No shocker here, but the Bills are 2nd at $55m:

• Stephon Diggs at $31.1m
• Leonard Floyd at $4.4m
• Ryan Bates at $4m
• Micah Hyde at $3.4m
• Mitch Morse at $3m
• Jordan Poyer at $2m
• 7 more players at a total of $6.75m -- just a mess of contracts here

And if you're wondering, the Bills #2 cap hit in 2024... is Von Miller at $15m. That's not exactly dead money, but it's close.

Jets are 3rd at $52m -- and there's no massive charges, just a ton of mid-level players that they've cut over the past couple years. They have a $2m cap hit for Mecole Hardman from last year, which is fun. (The Chiefs currently owe Hardman zero dollars.)

I'll talk about one more team, and that's the Chargers at #4 with $51.4m:

• JC Jackson at $20.8m
• Mike Williams at $12.5m
• Keenan Allen at $11.6m
• Eric Kendricks at $2.7m
• Sebastian Joseph Day at $2.5

Last thing I'll mention is that I'm not sure how OverTheCap is generating these numbers.

The Broncos are listed as having only $14.6m in official dead cap charges:

• Randy Gregory at $7.1m
• Justin Simmons at $3.8m
• several players at around $1m -- including Frank Clark

...however, they're showing Russell Wilson with a cap number for the Broncos at $53m all by himself, but he doesn't count as dead cap? So I'm not sure what that's about.

So the Broncos are actually at about $67.6m, which would by far be the most in the league. Except that OverTheCap didn't include Tre'Davious White for the Bills, who has a cap hit of $16.4m, which would actually give the Bills the highest dead cap at $71.3m.

Just further evidence to show that for all the praise we give Veach in terms of talent acquisition, he's put in literally peerless work on having brilliant cap management. The Chiefs, more than any other team in the league, have their money on the field.

Anyway, have a great Wednesday, everybody. LMAO

Very interesting. The mismanagement of some pretty good teams is their downfall.

The Bills have a functional dead cap of $71.3m and are paying Von Miller $15m. That's $87m that they're effectively flushing down the toilet this year.

That's... unfathomable levels of cap destruction.

I watched the series about the Patriots dynasty on Apple tv and one of the points they made in one of the early episodes was that winning the Super Bowl was like a drug and once you tasted it, you had to have more. Then they detailed all the (known) cheating the Patriots engaged in after that in their attempts to keep winning.

The Bills did something similar in their quest to catch the Chiefs. They were monomaniacal in their efforts and put themselves further and further behind the 8-ball with all the contract idiocy and now the bill has come due. The fact that the Chiefs managed to just keep winning while simultaneously keeping themselves free of any salary cap hell is more mind boggling evidence of just how good this entire franchise really is right now.

Josh Allen couldn't take advantage of a loaded team. I blame him. Now he gets scraps and forced to play hero ball.

Quality post, Direc.

New York is probably working on selling Buffalo and it's money pit stadium to Canada. NFL will go international like it's wanted for years

It’s not really “they’re paying it this year” though. It’s just an accounting thing that it hits the books this year

It’s already been paid for the most part right?

Just a bit of a pet peeve

Some of it isn't mismanagement - it was just paying on credit. Void year dead money is planned, for example.

What's amazing is that we went back to back without any of those shenanigans.

"however, they're showing Russell Wilson with a cap number for the Broncos at $53m all by himself, but he doesn't count as dead cap? So I'm not sure what that's about."

Probably because it is a post-June 1 cut designation so he is technically still on the team & is not dead money for another month. My guess.

I couldn't bring myself to watch that Patriots doc on Apple TV. Is there even much of anything of value to it? Or is it the usual Patriots slobberfest?

Great post! I love all the numbers as well.

I do however suggest you go look at “saved” cap as well. While dead money is important, it’s just half of the actual calculation to get the “net” amount.

Dead cap - saved cap = Net cap hit/saved

And like DJ said, some teams just give out contracts with a couple extra years of dead money because it saves them cap now! Right or wrong the net is still the same and should not be counted.

It's not a slobberfest and it's actually pretty interesting.

Believe you are correct.

purely amazing and gross at the same time.

The Broncos will be broke for a long time

It proves Herschel Walker type deals never work.

Man, the Bills were REALLY through with Stephon Diggs. Would love to know exactly what happened between Diggs and the team that they would trade him to a contender and still eat over 31 million worth of cap hit. They wanted him the hell out of there.

A past friend and golf buddy from NJ was the top salary cap expert working for the NFL head office and then went to the Texans to run football operations.

He tried explaining the salary cap to a bunch of us one day after golf and no one could understand it.

Really complex......

We are paying Mahomes top $, we can't afford dead cap money. It would kill us that year. As long as Mahomes is upright and not running for his life at the snap of the ball, we have a realistic chance to win a SB.

That money was gonna be on the cap next season anyway.

Ultimately they were willing to eat a little shit this year to save $19 million over the next 2 seasons (the base salary they avoided this year).

If you view it in the context of them treating 2024 as a stepback season to clean up the books (Miller should be off in 2025 as well) before re-loading again, it's a pretty smart move.

The Bills plan seems really clear at this point - they're not trying real hard for 2024. They're trying to plan for life after the Bengals start losing WRs and Kelce ages out. They pulled the chute on what appeared to be a 3-year window around the Von Miller deal and are looking to set up a new one.

It's really not a bad plan.

That makes sense when it's spelled out like that.

My brain went full TMZ thinking that Allen really did bang Diggs' ex (or vice-versa?), and it had become way too toxic there to move forward.

13 seconds completely broke the Bills. Kind of hard to blame them, they felt they played a perfect game and still lost to their arch rival. How do you do better than perfect? Gotta go all-in, I guess.

Still amazes me how 1 single loss sends one of the most powerful franchises spiraling out of control.

It's how I wanted to handle the Clark deal and tried to point it out to the "He costs the same to cut as he does to keep" crowd.

That cost just gets sent to the next year. For the Bills, it cost the same to keep him as it would to cut him...over 1 season. But over 2, you get the benefit of the subtracted base.

It's why most cap maneuvers really need to be looked at over a 2 year window and sometimes 3. There are ways to work it that make a lot of sense when viewed in the context of possible restructures. When you do that - and focus on base salary or roster bonuses being freed up (because the signing/restructure bonuses are baked into the cake either way) you can really see what the end game was.

This was all about freeing up that $19 million in base salary over 2 seasons. the rest of the damage was just a matter of when it hit. And whether it hits in 24 or 25 is immaterial in the rollover era, especially when you have a QB contract that you can move money around on to make things largely even out.

The Texans, the Bills, the Titans.......

Mahomes just straight up wrecks franchises in the playoffs.

Yep, they cant seriously compete this year.. Even if they win the 13 second game they would have lost to the Bengals in next weeks game.

Last year was their chance. Agree with your theory. Wait till the Bengals lose their WR's and Kelce retires to take your SB shot again.

"By my math, there is nearly a billion dollars in dead money on NFL caps this year.

Over $828 million."


And only around half of that is due to Russel Wilson.

It is exactly what they are doing, And it's the Smartest move for them.

Glad to hear you finally realized the value of Frank Clark. :p LMAO

Good thread, Direkshun.

I concur! :thumb:

Houston will be a problem. The Chargers will be a problem. And I don’t think Cincinnati, Kansas City, or Baltimore will collapse like Buffalo is hoping over the next 5 years.

I thought this thread was about the downfall of the USD.

Yup.

Not everyone can keep a window open for a decade. Mahomes is a unicorn that allows that.

For everyone else it's about finding a window, attacking it, identifying a core for the future and then re-grouping and rebuilding around that core for a 2nd bite at the apple.

Then you find a new core, rinse and repeat.

For a 'normal' NFL team you're looking at maybe an 8 year cycle where you have a year of build up, 3 years where you gauge/attack your window, 2 years of rebuild/reload and then 2-3 years within a new window.

Then the guys you started with have aged out and you start the process anew. Now for Buffalo, their core guys weren't all that young to begin with so it's a different sequence for them, but they're definitely in their step-back period before trying to re-set a core and forge a new window.

The Chiefs are in their '2nd Window' already because somehow they won a damn SB in the 2022 'reload' year. Now they're making a 2nd attack with their Mahomes/Kelce/Jones core for a couple more years before they will also look to re-assess and reload.

2026 is likely to be a little bit of a step-back season where they identify their new core; likely around Mahomes, Rice and McDuffie. But I'd say they're in far better shape than most teams because of how well they've supplemented this roster with dudes like Karlaftis, Bolton and Creed as others have aged out.

The Chiefs have just done this better than everyone else.

and those teams still in trouble with the cap INCREASE this year.

The Broncos have a nice chunk of that by themselves. LMAO

It's true.

I will say I feel the Texans and Titans playoff runs were kinda flukey? Like they were going to lose anyways and wouldn't be back for future postseason success. The Texans organizationally and the Titans strategically just wouldn't be able to replicate their success, that was their only chance.

The Bills however, were perfectly poised to challenge the Chiefs year after year. Until 13 seconds. Then they completely lost their minds in a desperate all-in move in 2022 and have to pay the piper with nothing to show for it.

coming back to this, they have not even started new draftees yet.
will be a lot of shuffling of players left in the next few months