Latest / Unicorn Football Talk / The NFL Salary Cap
Transcript
- Emily: Hello, hello. We're back at Unicorn Football Talk. Hi, Hillary. Hilary: Hey Emily, how are you today? Emily: I'm great. I'm excited to be here with you today. We are introducing a new deep dive format type feel where both you and I are gonna take turns tackling a topic we're interested in. So up to now, we've been doing the same topic, we've been researching it together, but we thought this might be fun. So I'm gonna go first and Hilary: I'm really glad you're going first. Emily: We'll give it a try. We'll see how this goes. I pick the NFL salary cap as my deep dive topic. I know a little bit about it, but when I hear reports of new deals, I wish I knew more. And so that's why I picked it. And so I'm just curious what you know or don't know about it. Is there anything you're hoping to get out of this today? Hilary: I don't know a lot about the salary cap. I find the whole process kind of confusing, but I think what I really don't understand is how an individual player has a different cap hit on different years and sometimes it's the I think it's the way they structure the deals, but I'm not really sure. And I I got a lot of questions. So I'm I'm I'm eager to learn more. Emily: Okay, that is what we're talking about. Exactly what you just said you're confused about. I really hope you leave this episode knowing the answers to those questions because it is more dense of a topic than you would think. So the salary cap is a limit on the total amount of money each team can spend on players' salaries and bonuses in a season. Okay. It started in 1994 following a lawsuit by players. And they agreed to the salary cap in exchange for free agency. So it started back then and the first cap year was thirty-four point six million. And this year in twenty twenty six, it's three hundred and one point two million. I know we've talked in the past about the revenue sharing and that the cap is going up, but wow, that's that's a big increase. do you know the only year Hilary: Yeah. Emily: where there was a drop in the cap? Only one year since nineteen ninety four. Hilary: I'm gonna guess twenty twenty or twenty nineteen. Emily: 2021 due to COVID. So the revenue drastically went down and they they dropped the cap down. Otherwise, it just keeps going up and up and up. and you know, so the limit, as I just said, is just it's just a limit on the total amount of money each team can spend on players and bonuses. That sounds straightforward. Episode over, we good? No, it's not that, it's Hilary: Yeah. Emily: not that straightforward. What makes it really complicated is not all the money they spend. is accounted for in the year that they spend it. And there's just a lot of tricks that the GMs can do to manipulate what counts and when. So it's really an accounting exercise. So if you like accounting, you might want to go into the cap business. before we start though, some leagues have caps and some don't. and I was just curious do you think a cap is a good thing for a league? I mean what's your opinion on that? Hilary: I understand that the reason behind it is to try and keep some parity across the team so that those with the deepest pockets just can't outspend everybody else. so yeah, I think so. I also think in some ways it maybe does put a little bit of a limit on what the players can ask for salary wise, right? Because they th there's there's there's a certain amount of money to go around. Emily: Yeah, I'm in favor of it. I love that the NFL has so much parity. I think the fans win when there's a salary cap. unless you're a fan of a team that has so much money, is willing to spend. But like that would feel weird to me if my team just bought every star player out there I like competition and I don't think I would enjoy it as much. So I it's it's a win for me. the NFL has something called a hard cap and it means teams cannot exceed that number, that three hundred million number, without some penalties, which I'll talk about later. So do you know what other leagues have hard caps? Hilary: I think MLB baseball. No, they do not. Okay. Emily: No, they do not. All right. They do not. That's actually the famous example of no cap. Hilary: All right, and maybe soccer. That's why we talk football, right? Like so I'm like, for two here. Emily: Hey, this is why we talk football, right? We no, we don't know anything. I don't know anything about other sports, but because I was looking in the cap, this is the only reason I know, Hillary. So thank you for being Hilary: Okay. Emily: brave and taking, I guess, and being vulnerable. so in addition to the NFL, the NHL, so the National Hockey League and the WNBA also have hard cap. There's also something called a soft cap. Where there are certain rules that allow you to go over. the NBA and MLS have this. And I didn't dig into the details, but it's, you know, what allows you to sign you know, a star player kind of thing if you have to go over. and but the MLB is the one that has no cap. They have something called a luxury tax. No, in fact, I've heard there's a rumor that There might be a lockout in the next year I know we don't talk baseball here, but that I think baseball wants it. the players do not, obviously. But they have something called a luxury tax where you can spend what you want, but if you spend over a certain amount, you have to pay a tax on that. So it's gonna cost you even more. So that's interesting. I'm I'm glad the NFL is the way it is. Some teams like Hilary: Okay. And so some teams don't care. Okay? Emily: The Yankees, maybe the Dodgers. Again, I don't know baseball. So if I'm wrong on that, just go easy on me. Hilary: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, let's Emily: so how they set the cap, it's tied to the league economic growth. About forty eight percent of the total league revenue is how much that they are have to spend on players. So that's that's pretty high. I don't I don't know. I don't have a gut feel if it should be higher or lower, but that seems reasonable. Hilary: Okay. Emily: something I learned doing research, I don't know if you knew this, but there's also a spending floor that each team has. Did you know that? Hilary: No. So they ha they can't just nest egg their money. Emily: They can't just be a cheap owner and not spend money. They have to spend ninety percent of the cap. And I think it's a little bit more nuanced to that because it goes over multiple years. There's some rules. And I I didn't get into the details. The point is there's a spending floor and they have to, you know, they have to pay players. So again, didn't know that. Hilary: I didn't know that either. It seems like every story you hear is how a team is maxing out and bumping up against the cap. You never really hear accusations that someone's not using their money, right? Yeah. Emily: of underspending. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. which is probably why we had never heard of it. so first of all, when we say you can only spend three hundred and one million in a year, what is the year? It's not a calendar year. It's a league year. So I don't know if you've heard about that, but like mid March starts the beginning of the next year. So we are now fully in the 2026 league year and season when we talk about cap. Hilary: So is that why sometimes there's really important dates in the spring about when they cut players to have them affect or not affect the cap when of when they're let go or released? Okay. Emily: Yes. Yeah. So yeah, let's talk about the nuts and bolts and what makes up Like how you add up to 300 million or 301 million. Let's round, let's Hilary: Okay. Emily: round to 300. It's just an easier number to say. So you have base salary, and that's what players earn for playing in games. And that always hits in the current year. So their game check always hits towards the salary cap. Make sense? Okay, that's the easy the rest the rest are harder. There's Hilary: Okay. Emily: bonuses and there's different kinds of bonuses. And there's different accounting rules for those bonuses. So a signing bonus, which GMs love to use this mechanic for trying to alleviate cap hit in a year. So it's cash up front. So it's like I'm I pay you $50 million up front and you spread it out on the cap across the life of the contract. So if it's a two-year contract. Your cap hit is 25 million each year. If it's a five year contract, it's 10 million a year. Does that make sense? Hilary: Instead of that whole fifty million being in that given year. Okay. Got it. Emily: Yes, correct. so five year contract, that's the maximum though that you can spread it out. So let's say you have a 10 year contract, which would be extremely rare, you could still only spread it out five years. That's the maximum. Okay, so there's two other kinds of bonuses. A roster bonus counts in the year it is paid. So I was like, Okay, why isn't that just salary? But it theoretically gives GMs flexibility in pulling different levels, but if they want to move on from a player. But but basically if you hit the next league year, you get a roster bonus because you're on the roster and that hits in that year. And then they also have things called option bonuses that are like basically the same as a signing bonus, but they hit in future years. So like year two will give you an option bonus and that will spread out across the remaining years of the contract. Hilary: Okay, and then there's performance bonuses too, right? Emily: Those are called technically incentives. And I learned about Hilary: Okay. Emily: these too. It's interesting. There's two different kinds. There's what they call likely to be earned and not likely to be earned incentives. So LTBE and NLTBE. so if you have a likely to be earned incentive, like you were a thousand yard running back last year, you rush for a thousand yards and we think you're gonna hit it again. We make it a likely to be that that bonus counts in that year. Even though they haven't earned it yet. Sorry, incentive. They haven't earned it yet, but it still counts towards the cap that year. What happens if they don't earn it? you get to move cap into a another year. So I didn't know that either, that if you have unused cap space from one year, you can push it to the next year. Hilary: That's why there's a spending floor. Otherwise someone might stockpile for a while and then roll a whole bunch over into a year and then go buy a bu buy a lot of major talent. Is that what you're saying? Okay. Emily: Yeah. So yeah. So you so I thought that was interesting because I'm like, well, that's not fair. You're counting it in that year and then you didn't actually spend that money, but you get to have it in a future year. But from a GM perspective, they're expecting that person to make it. But good news for them, if they don't, they don't have to pay them that money and they get cap space relief next year. The non likely to be earned ones are ones that are truly like, we don't know if you're gonna make it. Like, If Arizona, if Jacoby Brissett gets a bonus for going to the Super Bowl, that's not likely to be earned. I don't know for sure that that's in his contract. I'm just saying, not likely to be earned. Let's just say he gets a two million dollar bonus. That will hit in the next the next league year if they achieve those. Hilary: Okay. Emily: So the last thing that could hit your line item is dead money. Dead money is a hit to the cap for a player that has been cut or traded. And there's a lot of different nuances to that. and I'm gonna give you some examples later. It's like there's a Hilary: There's a lot of dead money, right? I th more than we think. Emily: my gosh, I can't wait to get to that part because I'm gonna blow your mind. so like bonus money, remember how I said you signed a five-year contract and you got a $50 million bonus. And let's say you got cut after year two. You had been planning to spread that cap hit out for future years. you know, third Hilary: Mm-hmm. Emily: 10 million a year. so that's future year dead money against a player that's not there. But to make it more complicated, there's special rules as well. So there's an accelerator. So You actually have to take that hit when you cut a player in one year. So all the money that you had guaranteed to them, or whether it was bonus that you'd already paid them or future year guaranteed money, you have to take that hit and dead money in that one year. But there's a but. this is until there's Hilary: Of course there is. This is accounting. Of course there is. Emily: a year. So I don't know if you've probably heard the term. Pre-June first or post-June first. There's a there's a key date in the calendar. Hilary: Yes. Yeah. Emily: if you cut a player pre-June first, all of the money associated with cutting them hits that season. If you cut them post June first or you trade them or whatever, it you can take the hit that would have hit that year this year and all of it. would then the remaining bounce would hit the next year. So you can spread it out over two years or take the hit in one year as your only option. Does that make sense? Hilary: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So from a player's perspective, you wanna be cut if you're gonna be cut or traded after June one. Emily: Player, it doesn't actually matter to the player from a Hilary: It doesn't matter. Okay. Emily: financial perspective. If they're owed money, they're gonna get their money. It's more of an accounting distinction. Now, players Hilary: Mm. Emily: want to be cut earlier so they can go find their next job. And this is why Hilary: Right. Emily: each team can actually cut people before June 1st and designate them as a post June 1st cut. They get two of those. So It's a it's a nice thing to do for a player. You know you're gonna cut them. You can cut them and you can go, hey, this is post-June first. I wanna take that dead cap hit over two years. But they can go find their next job right now. Hilary: Okay. Emily: this is why I don't know if you remember AJ Brown, Eagles was traded after June first, and this is why he was traded after June first. to the Patriots. So from the Eagles to the Patriots. The Eagles can spread out the bonus dead cap money over two years instead of take that hit all this year. Hilary: Okay. And then you have some teams who are just kind of in perpetual dead cap nightmare, like the Falcons, right? Or yeah. Okay. Maybe not the Falcon. Emily: There are. I don't know if I called them out later yet, but there are some. I think one example from the past, when I was doing my research is they talked about the Saints had done a lot of Saints, yeah. So Saints the Saints had Hilary: sorry, that's what I mean. It's the Saints. Yeah. Not the not the Falcons. It's the Saints. Yes. Emily: decided to invest in like a lot of flashy players, give them a lot of upfront bonuses. You spread it out and then it didn't work out. And they've been sort of carrying that dead weight for a while. I think they're out from under it in twenty twenty six is maybe the last year of this reckoning. But yeah, I mean some player some teams are in some dire straits and some teams do a better job managing. But I there's some luck involved too. you know, if a player Hilary: Sure. Emily: that should have worked out and really didn't. So I guess that was a lot. I should take a pause. That was a lot. Hilary: Yeah, yeah, that yeah. Emily: That b basically those are all the ways that hit your accounting. I'm hoping that most of that made sense. Not that it'll stick with you forever because I'm still trying to commit it to memory. Hilary: I Emily: All right. So if you're a GM, what tools do you have? What kind of decisions would you make in order to keep your cap space healthy? at any time a GM can restructure a player's high base salary into bonus and spread out the cap to future years. So I hear about that all the time, actually. you know, we're supposed to be paying you all this money instead. We're just gonna give you a bunch of it now, which players are like, Cool. That sounds good to me. And then they can spread that out over future years. So that's one one tool at their disposal. Hilary: It works in reverse too, right? Sometimes they come to the player asking to restructure the deal to spread the money out for cap relief, right? Yeah. Emily: Yeah, they'll the I I know teams will ask and sometimes they'll say, We might have to cut you, but we want to keep you. I've seen players take decreases or changes that are not in their favor too, if they really want to stay with the team. I actually saw somebody this morning and I can't remember who that agreed to take a salary decrease. But in general players they care about their guaranteed money, which is the part that hurts the cap. because if you cut, like if if money is not guaranteed and you cut a player, there's no cap hit. It's all about the guaranteed plus the bonus that you've already given out that hits the cap. Hilary: So that's why players are trying harder to get that guaranteed money clause into their contracts. Okay. Emily: Yes. Yep. And that's why, well, there's many reasons teams won't want to guarantee money, but one of them is Hilary: Yeah. Emily: if it doesn't work out, you're besides the cash, you're stuck with dead money. so there's also something called void years. you can add fake contract years onto a deal. So like you want to sign somebody for three years. But you're gonna have two years of void years like on top of it. You could actually technically make it a five year deal that you can spread out the bonus across five years. And that's great. And so then what happens after year three? You actually do take the hit of the remaining bonus if you don't re-sign them. But if you do, you can continue to spread it out. So I don't know if that made sense. Hilary: It does. It's a gamble, right? I mean Okay. Emily: It's a gamble. Yeah, you might get that hit after year three, but if the player works out and you want to sign him to a deal, then you benefited. So all of these decisions would be really hard to make, I think. I think they they have a hard job Hilary: I'm assuming each franchise has an entire team of people who do just this. Emily: I am sure they do. there's also something called a rolling guarantee. This one's interested. And this is how Patrick Mahomes contract works. So he signed a really, long contract recently. I think it's like an eight-year contract or extended his current contract by 10, you know, 10 years total. the first three years of this extension are guaranteed, which you would expect for a quarterback of his caliber, but For those future years, the guarantee only kicks in as long as he is on the roster at the beginning of the new year in March. So then the contract Hilary: Okay. Emily: will trigger and lock in the guaranteed money for that year. But if they cut him before then, that money was not guaranteed. So they would not take the cap hit if they ever wanted to. cut him earlier. They take less of a cap hit. Hilary: Okay, right, or there's injury or for some reason he doesn't continue his career or whatever. Emily: For whatever reason. So that's a that's a way to sign a like person of his caliber to a very long contract with kind of guaranteed money as long as he's still on the team. I thought that was kind of an interesting option for them. And I already talked about rollover caps. So teams that don't use all their cap in one year, they can use it next year. But remember there's a cap floor. So I'm not gonna go into all the nuances Hilary: Right. Emily: of that, but you you still have to spend. You can't just keep hunting it. Hilary: Yeah, so with all of this maneuvering of money, do you think that players' contracts are getting longer in tenure or shorter? Emily: I think it just depends on the player for sure. And it depends on their negotiations. if you're a good GM, you just don't want to be locked into guaranteed money unless you're really, really sure about the player. But I think that five year number is really important and those void years, I'm assuming that they use Hilary: Mm-hmm. Emily: that a lot, but I don't know. Hilary: Do they have a sense from year to year how much the cap will increase? Like when do they get to know the numbers for the next year? Do you know? Emily: They know it pretty close to when the new league year starts. Hilary: you can assume it's not gonna go down based on history, right? So you're gonna have at least a certain amount. Emily: I'm sure each team has their own projection. I don't know of the league providing guidance on that for people. I've not heard that. But that's surely part of their calculation is we're just gonna assume X percent per year. And, you know, I'm very conservative, so I would go on the low side personally, but you know, who knows? Hilary: Right. And they have to keep below the cap at the beginning of the year, right? Cause you have to have money then for the players you drafted in your cap also. Emily: Yeah, well I was gonna talk about that too. you know, right now where we're in the the league year, they have ninety players on the roster. So you don't Hilary: Yeah, yeah. Emily: have to be under the cap with 90 players. The way they do it during this part of the season that we're in, and hopefully we release this in the preseason. but if Hilary: Yeah. Emily: if you're listening to this before the season actually starts, before there's a 53 man roster. What you have to do is you have to remain under the cap for the top fifty one paid players. So as long as the top fifty one players are under, you're good. But then, you know, obviously you've got quite a task to to get to fifty three and be under the cap the week before the season starts. Hilary: Okay. So practice squat and other things like that don't factor into the cap. Emily: They do but at this point it's just the top fifty one players. So the fifty three plus practice squad plus injured reserve, all of that counts. Hilary: wow. Okay. Okay. Emily: Yeah. All of it counts except right now, it's just top fifty one. Hilary: That sounds like a lot of a juggling of money in accounting. I I Emily: It's a lot. Hilary: would not want that job. Emily: the one list that does not count is the NFI list, the non football injury list. And I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's players that suffer an injury or medical illness that really is completely outside of NFL team activities. Hilary: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think the Seahawks had one of those once, one of their draft picks went and rode an ATV and got messed up and yeah. Never never never Emily: Never showed up. Yeah. Hilary: showed up, never played, right? Emily: Thankfully I forgot his name. Like that was Hilary: Yeah. Emily: that was like was he first round? he was high draft pick. He goes off in his ATV, he gets injured and he never played for us. He never even showed up. I think he played a few snaps for somebody else, but I'm no, it didn't count, but we lost the draft pick. So Hilary: But it wouldn't have my point being the money wouldn't have counted. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Emily: yeah, that was unfortunate. Have you heard of offset language before? Hilary: Vaguely no idea what it means. Emily: Well, this is an interesting one because it's, you know, the NFL rookies, I know we've talked about this before. There's very little that they can negotiate when they're signing their contract because it's pretty much set what their salary will be for how many years. But Hilary: Right. Okay. Emily: one of the things they can still negotiate is offset language. with offset language, which a player wants, if a team owes a cut player four million, let's say in guarantees, and a new team signs them for a one million, the original team only pays them three million. So there's an offset, like basically they're saying you get a total of four million, regardless of whether we're paying you or somebody else. And so the original team saves a little money and cap with no offset. Under the same scenario, the original team must still pay them the original four million and the player pockets both salaries, bringing them up to five million. Hilary: Sweet. That's a better deal for the player for sure. Emily: Yeah. So a lot of first rounders try to negotiate this but the later rounds you are, the less likely that you're gonna get that language. let's talk about what happens. if a team is not under the salary cap? It doesn't happen very often because the penalties are bad. The league can levy massive fines of up to five million per individual violation, which maybe isn't that bad for a billionaire. but probably what hurts more is loss of draft picks. Or they can actually, and I don't know if there's any examples of this, but they could void active contracts. The league has the power to nullify and cancel contracts to bring Yeah. Hilary: Really? Emily: So I that's what I hear. and any team remaining over the cap is completely banned from signing new players or executing executing trades until they restructure. So It's not a good scenario. And this is why you don't see it that often. But I have a few examples of when this has happened in the past. In 2023, Houston Texans were given a penalty because during COVID, the facilities were closed and the Texans spent $26,000 to purchase a private gym membership for Deshaun Watson. And they didn't record it as a standard player compensation on their salary cap report. So they were Hilary: Okay. Emily: docked a fifth round draft choice for that. Hilary: Really? Emily: yes. in the year 2000, the Steelers had an accounting error and they were fined a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and stripped of a third round pick. I'm not sure if it's NFL or they discovered that they failed to accurately track and report financial parameters of certain bonuses over a multi year stretch. So that was just purely, I don't think there was any nefarious stuff happening. Hilary: Okay. Yeah. It's mistakes, right? Yeah. Emily: Just a oops mistake. Hilary: That's a pretty severe penalty though. Emily: It was a it was a severe penalty, but this one, I don't know if you remember hearing about the uncapped year in twenty ten. So the collective bargaining agreement had expired. And I'm not going to the details on what happened there or why it happened, but the outcome there was no salary cap that year. There was just no salary cap. So Hilary: Wow. Emily: But the owners had a gentleman's agreement not to exceed a certain amount. So I could give you a couple guesses, but two teams, actually four, but two really badly ignored it. I don't know if you have if you have any guesses. I'm Hilary: Twenty t twenty ten. I'm gonna go with the Dallas Cowboys. Emily: Yeah. Hilary: I'm gonna go with the Jets and I'm gonna go with the Raiders. Emily: Okay, you got you said you got two. So there are Hilary: Okay. How many were there? Emily: four. There are four, but there were two that were really bad. So Jerry Jones, Dallas, and the other owner, and you're gonna be like, I should have thought of that. If you can remember who the owner of the Washington Commanders were, and Dan Snyder. So it's Hilary: yeah, yeah, okay. Dan Snyder. Emily: exactly who you would think. think would break a gentleman's agreement. Sounds about Hilary: Think Jimman's e yeah. Okay. Emily: right. They were blatant, they blatantly dumped massive amounts of future player salaries into the 2010 year. So they converted some bonuses to salary that were absorbed like they were just like, hey, we're gonna pay you all this money now as a salary instead of a bonus. We won't have future year impact. So in Washington, Albert Hainsworth was one example. in Dallas, Miles Austin was one of them, but I think there were more. So the league actually stripped 36 million in cap space from Washington and 10 million from Dallas for the twenty twelve season and they gave that cap space to the other teams. Hilary: I love it. Okay. Okay, so really quick, who were the four teams? Because Washington, Dallas, okay. Emily: So yes, I'ma yeah, I'm gonna get to the other two. And the reason I I I held off is that their penalties were different. So the Saints Hilary: Okay. Emily: and the Raiders were the other two. They had some minor violations. So their only penalty was that they did not get the extra cap space allocated from that pool of 36 plus 10 million. so that that was a pretty big but yeah, losing Hilary: okay, minor penalties for them, yeah. Emily: 36 million in cap space. Hilary: Yeah. Emily: kind of a big deal. So I was kind of interested in why a gentleman's agreement would be binding or like why the league could go after those teams. because it and it's not really binding in like a legal sense, but the NFL operates as sort of its own self-governing entity. So Goodell could trigger the quote conduct detrimental to the league clause and and then create that penalty. Yeah. Hilary: Interesting. Okay, and good Dell has been that long. Yeah, okay. Emily: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should talk about Goodell. I'd be interested in having a conversation about him and also the conduct gentimental to the league. I'm thinking maybe it would be a interesting future episode on when they've used that clause. Kind of a broad, broad. Yes, they have. Hilary: They've used it with players, I know that. Emily: But I did not track when that happened. I knew there was some I guess I was busier back then. I knew there was some penalty. Dallas and the commanders, but I could not remember what the details were. So that was interesting. I got a couple more things for you before we close it out. I thought we could talk about some dead cap examples from this year and a little bit of history. I was shocked. So there's a site called spot track dot com, Hilary: Yep. Emily: They do a great job tracking all kinds of stats on cap space and dead cap space and how the teams are doing. I was in shock when I pulled up. I was like, okay, what are the three worst teams this year for twenty twenty six in dead cap space? Like it blew me away. I did not know the top team. Do you have a guess on the top team? Hilary: Dead cap space. Emily: Yeah, so again, just as a reminder, dead cap is cap space for players that are no longer on your team. Hilary: Like we're on the roster. How about Miami? Emily: Yes. my gosh, you would not Hilary: Ha ha. Emily: believe the amount. You're you're just not gonna believe it because I couldn't. A hundred and seventy nine million dollars out of three hundred in dead cap space Hilary: Wow. Emily: this year. Yeah. Hilary: Okay. Well that explains some things about their roster construction down there, doesn't it? Emily: Yeah, I look the the dead money, the twenty twenty-six dead money cap. So Tua, which Hilary: Mm-hmm. Emily: now holds the distinction of the biggest individual cap hit in history, he's hitting for 55 million this year, and Hilary: I knew it was big. That's really big. Emily: forty-four million next year. So moving on from him really cost the team. Hilary: Mm-hmm, Emily: Tyreek Hill is a twenty-eight million dollar cap hit, Jalen Waddle, Jalen Ramsey, Minka Fitzpatrick. These are all players of over ten million. So Hilary: Okay, so that's really interesting because Jalen Waddell was just signed by the Broncos, right? So Emily: Mm-hmm. Hilary: you're in your example, if there was offsetting language in there, that would give Miami some relief, correct? Emily: Yeah, and I didn't go into the details of his specific but but Hilary: No, no, yeah, I'm I'm just saying like that's a Emily: he's an elite player that probably commanded Hilary: Right. Emily: quite a big signing bonus, there's no relief from that. Like you can't Hilary: Okay. Emily: yeah, there's no relief from that. So they're they're paying the price now. Hilary: All right. And Tyreek's still a free agent, I believe, at this time. Yes? Yeah. As of time of recording. Emily: I believe he is too, yeah. As of the time of recording. Hilary: Yeah. Emily: so the number two, I'm just gonna list out the top three teams. The number Hilary: Okay. Emily: two team is Cleveland at 116 million. And then the number three team is New Orleans at a hundred and fourteen. And and again, I mentioned this earlier. They're sort of getting out of like a a bad period of dead cap space, but they're not number one anymore. So good for them. Hilary: Well, and I think they've cleaned house of their GM and some other admins since those decisions were made, maybe. Yeah. Emily: Yeah. Yep. So I went to go look at the three lowest and I was also very surprised by the lowest dead cap hit in the NFL. Do you wanna by surprise, I mean like Hilary: Going with the Emily: pleasantly surprised. Hilary: I'm going with the Indianapolis Colts or the Seahawks just because you're pleasantly surprised. Emily: Seahaw Seahawks It's the Seahawks. Their dead cap space this year are hit. This year is five hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars. Like Hilary: What? Emily: yeah, that's per spoke track, which I trust that source. I just scrolled all Hilary: Okay? Okay. Emily: the way down to the bottom of the list and there's the Seahawks with almost nothing. Now that doesn't mean that they're not in trouble for future years for whatever reason, but the other teams were what? Hilary: Correct. It means they haven't moved on from somebody with guaranteed money, right? That's the big driver for that. Like you using Tua as the example. Yeah. Emily: Exactly. it's to me it's really impressive to win a Super Bowl and have so little debt. Well, I guess I should look at future years because you have teams like the Rams that have always gone Hilary: Mm-hmm. Emily: all in on big high priced talent that are probably pushing some dead cap hit down in future years. So I I don't know. I admit I didn't I didn't look in future years. Hilary: Right. Yeah, like the Miles Garrett would be an example too, right? Like are the Brown is there a hit from to the Browns for that or maybe because he asked to be traded, it's different? I I don't know. Yeah. Emily: there is a hit to the Browns. Yeah. They have a pretty that's part of their reason that they've got such a big cap hit this year, because they have guaranteed money on the contract for him. other two teams that are low are Denver and the Chargers. They have about, well, Denver has like 3.5 million dead cap. And so I guess they're done with the Russell Wilson mess. And the chargers are at 5.5 million. So just to see the difference between the lowest and the highest is pretty shocking. The Miami $180 million. yeah, big $55 million is to yeah. Hilary: Mm-hmm. Well one third of that is two a, right? Yeah. Yeah. Emily: so biggest individual cap hits in history. And I didn't do this by percentage, like I probably should have, because obviously the numbers are gonna go up. and sound bigger. And it could be that there are people in the past that were like a huge percentage of the cap. And I didn't do that. But Tua now holds the distinction at 99.2 million dead cap hit, which we've already talked about. Russell Wilson is still up there. He's number two, but he was pushed out of the top spot. the Broncos had an eighty five million dollar dead cap hit over two years for Russell Wilson. And then Hilary: Wow. Emily: Kyler Murray, Arizona. has a fifty four million dollar cap hit by getting rid of Kyler Murray. Hilary: It's a really big deal for the team to make the decision that that's not gonna work Move on, right? Emily: it's a it's a ri Hilary: Because okay, that puts some context for me, like with the Vikings Like Kyler Murray can come in, they're playing him the league minimum, and who cares because Arizona is taking the hit, right? Emily: Yep. I feel like that's why people like Kyler get that second like shot. Hilary: Or Tua for that matter. Emily: or Tua for that matter. it's a low risk for the Vikings. They're not gonna take a cap hit for somebody like Kyler Murray. So yeah, it's just yeah. Hilary: Okay, I think that's another topic, right? That's a Emily: I just think GMs have a hard job. if you've got agents that drive really, really hard bargains, I mean, you might be forced into a situation you're not comfortable with because you really want the player and you're just crossing your fingers, it'll work out. there were a bunch of other things I could have gone into, but I feel like this is such a dense topic. So if we ever want to go deep into some of these like interesting contracts later, we could. But I do you feel like you know more about salary cap? Hilary: I do. I learned a lot. And I also learned that there's a lot more to learn. And so when I read some of the, announcements or stories about different signings or cuts or things like that, it's gonna give me another perspective to think about why that decision might be made or not. Emily: Yeah, I think I'm more prepared. Yeah, Hilary: Good stuff, Emily Banks. Emily: you're welcome. And I'm gonna put the link to Spo track in the show notes. So if anybody Hilary: Okay. Emily: wants to like in, you know, look into stuff on their own, I encourage it. It's a great site. it's been really fun looking into this and I appreciate you having the conversation with me today. Hilary: Awesome. I loved it. Let's come back and do another deep dive soon. Emily: Okay, see ya next time on Unicorn Football Talk. Hilary: See you next time.