Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams has reportedly told the team that he would prefer to be traded following a 2-2 start and in an offense that looks as if it may spread the ball out a bit more than usual among their receivers. Adams is one of the great receivers of this generation and would likely garner a good deal of trade interest if the Raiders do make him available.

The cost to trade for Adams at the moment would be $13.526 million. That number would drop by $968K each week that Adams’ remains on the Raiders roster. 11 teams in the NFL have the cap space necessary to make such a trade including the Jets, Cowboys, and Browns.

The trade compensation would be interesting. Years ago Julio Jones went for a 2 and a 4/6 swap. Jones had more realistic time on his contract when the trade with the Titans occurred (Jones was under contract for three years) as Adams contract is structured as more of a 1 year deal. Adams salary in 2025 is not guaranteed and balloons up to $36.25M that year. He has the same salary in 2026. When the contract was negotiated the 2025 and 2026 salaries were only included to boost the annual value of the contract and were considered unlikely to be earned.

The Raiders could also be asked to pick up most of Adams’ salary in a trade and ask for more compensation in return. That might be more along the lines of a 1st round pick or 2nd and 3rd type situation. That would open the door for teams like the Bills to get involved in trade discussions and likely give the Raiders much more leverage in trade talks.

From the Raiders perspective a trade probably makes sense. Last year Adams led the team with 175 targets with the next closest players at 106 and 54 respectively. Prior to missing a game Adams was still on pace to be the top target for the team but the margins were thinning and the addition of TE Brock Bowers has given the Raiders another passing threat to siphon a significant share of the workload. The Raiders are basically in QB purgatory right now playing out the string with journeyman Gardner Minshew until they can turn the page and find their way into a legit potential young star. A high draft pick for Adams could help them try to secure such a player. Given the nature of Adams contract with the high salary in 2025 odds are they would be cutting him next year for nothing in return.

The Raiders cap charges if they traded Adams would currently be $11.693M in 2024 and $15.7M in 2025. The 2024 number increases by the $968K mentioned above for each week Adams remains a Raider.

With four weeks now complete in the NFL season we start to hear discussion about teams who need to acquire players and teams that need to trade for players. I thought it would be good to compile a list of all players on teams that are either 1-3 or 0-4 who are set to become free agents in 2025. At best teams could hope for a compensatory pick for these players in 2026 so in my mind these should be the most realistic trade candidates around the league. I have included what the approximate cost would be to trade for a player this week to get a better idea as to how realistic a trade may or may not be. The headers of the table should be sortable if you click on them.

Tua Tagovailoa suffered another concussion during last night’s loss to the Buffalo Bills. I believe this is his third diagnosed concussion in the NFL and one of his concussions resulted in a very scary scene a few years ago which led to many believing he should step away from the NFL. The calls have grown louder since last night’s game as the number of concussions combined with other various injuries dating back to college have many wondering if the NFL is the right fit for him at this point.

Miami, somewhat surprisingly, signed Tua to a lucrative four year, $212.4 million contract making him one of the highest paid QB’s in the NFL. Tua, at the time, had one year remaining on his rookie contract which was worth $23.17 million. The new contract would guarantee an additional $144 million for injury of which $70 million was fully guaranteed. These were very player friendly terms given the injury history of the player.

There are three scenarios that would need to be discussed regarding the contract:

1. Tua voluntarily retires
2. Tua’s injury prevents him from playing
3. Miami just makes the call to move on

Tua Retires

There are massive financial ramifications for Tua if he decided to walk away from the Dolphins and retire from the NFL. A player would void any and all future guarantees by simply stepping away from the NFL even if leaving the league would be the best solution for his long term health.

At this point in time, Tua has earned $43.125 million of his contract but that is not necessarily all of his to keep. Of that amount the only number that is guaranteed to him is $9.525 million. That number is made up of his $1.125 million salary from this year and 1/5 of his $42 million signing bonus that he earned when he signed his new contract extension. This number is actually far less than the $23.17 million he would have made on his rookie contract.

When a player walks away from a contract the team can, at their discretion, enforce the forfeiture of bonus money provisions in a contract. Per NFL rules a player who voluntarily retires is responsible to pay the team back the remaining prorated portions of his contract. Tua’s proration is $8.4 million per year and he would have to pay that back each year for the next four years if he decided to call it a career.

That said I can’t see a scenario where Miami would make such a move. As mentioned above he would not have even earned what his prior deal would have paid him if Miami forced the forfeiture of salary. There is probably a lesson there for aspiring agents to just make certain the mechanism’s used for salary cap accounting at the very least protect the “old money” in a contract from any and all possibilities, but I would anticipate Miami allowing him to keep the bonus or at least the amount to cover his $23.17M rookie contract salary.

If this is the end result for Miami and Tua then Miami would have to determine how to deal with the salary cap consequences. These would be the two options for Miami in regards to the salary cap side of things:

If a post June 1 option was used Miami would rework Tua’s contract remove the option bonus and stated salaries and replace them with a minimum salary. My assumption would be that Miami’s decision would be based on how good or bad the 2024 season turned out. If the season went poorly they would probably take the salary cap hit in 2025. If they were competitive they might opt to have more cap room in 2025 and defer the charges to 2026.

Tua is Not Medically Cleared

I think there is always some confusion when it comes to dealing with NFL injuries and exactly what injury protection is or is not. Injury protection really is more of a short term protection that helps protect vesting dates in a contract. In the long term it is more like a catastrophic injury policy as you need to be injured to the point where you can not recover. Those instances are very rare. Injury protection protects you from being released while you are injured. The minute you are healthy the injury protection no longer has meaning.

While we are always learning more about head trauma, I am not sure if anyone has ever been told they can’t play due to concussions. They may have been told they should not play if they value their long term health, but that is different that not being medically cleared to return to play. Most, if not all, of the retirements due to fears surrounding CTE were voluntary with the player’s saying it was not worth the risk to come back to the NFL after suffering some injury.

The NFL has a number of rules regarding return to participation when it comes to concussions but essentially as symptoms subside and the player can return to activities he will eventually be cleared to play and the injury protection no longer kicks in. While there may be, and probably is, far more long term damage at risk, the protocols themselves have more to do with being symptom free than anything else. In any event the salaries that are protected in 2025, 2026, and 2027 would require Tua to still not be cleared for participation in each of those years. So while I think it is a very unlikely outcome let’s look at how this would likely play out.

It would not make sense for Miami to release Tua in 2025 even if Tua is no longer able to pass a physical. The salary cap cost would be gigantic due to the injury guarantees kicking in. Here would be the cost depending on how the move was designated (the June 1 Option would mean the team exercised his option prior to moving him off the team):

None of these scenarios make any sense for Miami because the cost is so high. In this case Miami would carry Tua for the year on the PUP list, hope that his symptoms subside to avoid his $20 million guarantee in 2027, and deal with his cap charge at either  $39.44M if they exercise the option or $58.7 million if they decline the option.

By the time 2026 rolls around Tua’s 2026 salary would still be fully guaranteed so there would be no need to release him this year either and they should again follow the same protocol as the prior year by keeping him on the PUP list. His cap charge this year would depend strictly on what they did with his 2025 option and what they did with his 2026 option. Here are the salary cap options:

I don’t think it would make any sense for Miami to decline either option and should just let the contract play out as normal.

The first real option for release of Tua would be in 2027 when they would still have about $64M on the cap to account for. At this point “only” $20 million would remain guaranteed. He is due a $5 million roster bonus on the 3^rd day of the league year that is addition to the $20 million guarantee so they would need to move him off the active list or modify his contract prior to that date. Assuming both options are exercised (which should be likely) here are the cap costs associated with his release:

The other option would be to again keep Tua on PUP for the year to move the main cap damage to 2028 and 2029. Here what the team would do is modify his contract to bring his salary for the year down to the minimum which would be $1.26 million and pay him an $18.74 million bonus to cover his guarantee. Under this scenario you would get the following cap options (assuming max void year additions for prorated salary):

I kind of feel that if things went this far that this would make the most sense for Miami. If they really wanted to they could do these types of restructures multiple times to just keep kicking the can into 2029, but if they follow the basic framework of his contract this should make the most sense. Ultimately Miami would account for these $157M in cap charges as follows:

I think this would be feasible as most of these cap charges would be workable as yearly “dead money” with the exception of 2026 and some of those costs should be offset by insurance credits that year.

Teams commonly take out insurance policies on players with large contracts and while Miami’s policy is not as aggressive as some others around the NFL they do have, per a source with knowledge of the contract, $49.3 million of the contract insured. While I do not know the particulars of the payouts, basically when a player misses time for injury they will receive proceeds from the policy. Those proceeds will be credited against the cap the following year.

As an example, if the policy paid the Dolphins  $5.5 million this season for games missed they would have an adjustment either to Tua’s cap number or to their adjusted cap next year to reflect that. So in 2026 they may have offsets for some 2025 salary and a big chunk of the signing bonus.

While none of these situations are ideal for Miami it is workable and the team has to effectively plan for millions in dead money a year to be on the roster.

Miami Decides to Move On

I also see this as very unlikely but perhaps Miami just says it is in the best interest of them to make the decision for Tua and say they can’t in good conscience put him back on the field and risk his health, while at the same time protecting all those future guarantees. A move would need to be made prior to the 3^rd day of the league year in 2025 to prevent his 2026 salary from becoming guaranteed and they would need to decide if they wanted to exercise the option or not.

I would not expect Miami to do a standard cut due to the cap costs but both other options are viable. The decision would probably boil down to what they think Tua would earn from another team if he wanted to continue his career. $50.046 million of Tua’s salary would be subject to offsets if he signed with another team provided the Dolphins decline the option. That number drops to $25.046 million if they do exercise the option. While there are plenty of ways to structure a contract to avoid offsetting salary from a prior team, I think you throw out any norms if we are talking a QB with some ability. Miami’s best option would probably be to pay out the option and try to goad a team into paying him more than $25M for the 2025 league year.

Overall Thoughts

With the injury so fresh in everyone’s head I think most of us are expecting the worst but I think everyone involved will play this out slowly and see how Tua feels in the next few weeks. I think it would be a longshot that he was not medically cleared and the Dolphins moving on would probably be a pure ownership decision.

This contract that Miami signed was always risky. There has been a lengthy injury history and Tua has really only stood out as a QB in one season. There was little need to rush into a contract this year and if any of the extreme cases happen and he ends up off of the team next year Miami’s front office will likely be in for some major shakeups as the team deals with the fallout from the contract over the next few years.

With another set of allegations coming down against Deshaun Watson of the Browns I have received a number of questions about what this means for his contract with the team that I will try to answer here as best I can.

At the moment, Watson’s salaries are fully guaranteed in 2025 and 2026. Both of those salaries are worth $46 million. Watson’s 2024 salary was almost all converted to a signing bonus ($44.79M of the $46M salary) before the season began and prorated over the course of the contract.   This salary could be subject to forfeiture depending on when a suspension came down from the league.

NFL contracts have pretty standard default language on guaranteed salary. Get suspended by the NFL for a drug violation and the guarantee is void. Get suspended by the NFL for off field conduct and the guarantee is void. Be unavailable because you are holding out, went to jail, got hurt playing pickup basketball or just did not feel like showing up and the guarantee is void. Get suspended by a team for conduct detrimental to the club or do something that reflects poorly on the organization and the guarantee is void. Basically, any hiccup that you can think of will likely void a guaranteed contract in the NFL.

Watson’s contract was unique because when he was traded for by the Browns it was well known that he was in the middle of multiple lawsuits which were likely going to lead to a NFL suspension.  The Browns agreed to waive the standard guarantee void language for any condition that would be triggered by anything related to these cases and any other cases that Watson thought could be coming provided that Watson provided the Browns with the details.  The language, per source with a knowledge of specific details of the contracts, seemed to pertain only to league suspensions that came down in 2022 or 2023 which would make a 2024 suspension unique even if suspended due to a potential case the Browns were already made aware of. The contract, however, should not allow the Browns to act on their own to void the guarantees if they were aware that this specific accusation was a possibility and it would require a league suspension to allow them to void the contract.

The salary cap costs to release Watson are still very high even if the Browns were able to void the guarantees. If they were able to void his guarantees this season and cut him now the cap cost would be $26.7M this year and about $80.25M in 2025. A suspension in 2024 would allow them to get credits for the bonus paid in 2024. If he was suspended in 2025, allowing the team to void the guarantee, they would have the option of taking the $80.25M cap charge in 2025 or spreading it out as $26.7M in 2025 and $53.6M in 2026. If they chose the latter the salary cap hold during free agency in 2025 would be $72.9M and then it would drop to $26.7M on June 2, 2025. In many ways the salary cap considerations are very similar to those of the Broncos with Russell Wilson this past offseason.

Taking action before the NFL issued a suspension might prove difficult. Guaranteed salary accelerates on the cap regardless of whether or not a player is released before or after June 1. That would lead to an additional $92 million in cap charges hitting the cap in 2024. If the league felt that the void was justified they would process it but in theory a grievance filed against the Browns should result in a $37.8M hold charge on the cap though there have been some rare instances where players have been reported to have filed a grievance and no cap charge was placed by the league on the team.

The Browns do have the room to absorb such a hit but it would put them in a more difficult position. If they lost the grievance they would have a massive negative adjustment to their 2025 salary cap making it very difficult to function next year. So they are most likely at the mercy of the NFL unless they have a clear out based on the circumstances of this specific accusation.

Finding a way out of the Watson contract, despite the monster short term cap consequences, would be beneficial overall for the team. The trade for Watson and subsequent contract modification will likely go down as the worst sign and trade in NFL history and this would allow them to turn the page on this era. Their path forward would remain the same, in my opinion, as if Watson was on the team- find a way to trade up in the NFL draft and get a young QB to offset the Watson salary cap issues and bring actual upside to the position. However, if they can actually move him off the team it will give the Browns, in the long term, an extra $92 million to work with and remove his presence from the sidelines while they try to develop another player.

At this stage of the game the Browns should be hoping that they can find a way out from under the contract. Watson only appeared in 12 games in his first two years with the team  and has not resembled the player he was in Houston. Just on football play alone, Watson is playing at a level where if he was truly a free agent he would be signing a backup with upside type of contract and being asked to compete for a starting job. Combine that with the fact that his situation is toxic and I am not sure he would even be in the NFL right now if not for the contract protections that the Browns gave him in 2022.  

Prior to the start of the regular season the Seahawks created $9.5 million in cap room by converting $11.875 million of WR’s D.K. Metcalf’s salary into a signing bonus. Prior to the restructure the Seahawks had around $4 million in cap room and this move gives them the breathing room to make any moves necessary during the course of the regular season.

This restructure was a departure from the Seahawks norms as they added three void years to the contract to maximize the salary cap savings. Generally, Seattle does not do this as they normally will max out at one void year. Metcalf, whose 2025 salary cap number is now $31.87 million, will be entering the final year of his contract in 2025 and the addition of these void years is probably an indication that Seattle knows that Metcalf will likely be extended next season

With NFL rosters pretty much finalized and week 1 just a few days away, I thought it would be a good time to look at just how much turnover there has been in the NFL in 2024. I looked at every roster in the NFL, not including practice squads (it does include players on reserve lists) and determined how many players were on the roster at the end of the 2023 season. The first column is inclusive of practice squad members from 2023 and the second column excludes practice squad players from 2023 as part of the calculation.

The average and median in the NFL are around 65% if we include the 2023 practice squad players and closer to 60% if we exclude them. This just illustrates how much teams churn through a roster year over year.

Only four teams will have 70% or more of their roster returning. The Colts lead the way with a crazy 81.7%. They are banking on some of the younger player improving as most teams who were at 9 wins and outside of the playoffs will tinker with their roster more than this.

The Browns have about 74% of their roster returning. They were a playoff team last season and their roster isn’t really built to deal with a ton of turnover unless they went into a full rebuild.

The Cowboys were also a playoff team and have 78% of the team returning if we consider 2023 practice squad players as part of the roster and 73% returning if we do not.  Dallas rarely touches free agents these days and almost exclusively builds via the draft. Due to this they will likely rank low in turnover and higher in returns most years. If Dallas fails to advance deep into the playoffs this approach will come under even more scrutiny.

Finally, we have the Ravens at 74 and 71% respectively. Baltimore is also a team that focuses on development via the draft but this year the salary cap likely prevented them from really adding as they are not a team against adding players.

The 49ers and Packers were both above 70% if we include the practice squad players. These are teams at two very different ends of the spectrum. San Francisco is an older team trying to get one last run out of a group. Green Bay is young all around and developing.

On the bottom end we have a few standouts. The Commanders are just gutting their team with only 39% of the 2024 roster having been in Washington in 2023. This is long overdue for a team that was headed nowhere for years. The question for them will be how patient can they be with this process.

The Panthers are right around 50% returning. Carolina is an example of a team that hasn’t been patient enough with their rebuilds and it leads to groundhog day scenarios with various GM’s. It feels like for the last decade the team has a cycle where it runs into cap issues, guts the roster like this to deal with the cap problems and poor results on the field, gets over anxious and screws up the cap with extensions and free agent signings, fires the GM, and then watches the cycle restart.

The Chargers are around 54% and probably should have been lower. They made the decision to hold on to a few expensive players who I guess will possibly be traded in season. Maybe they will be a surprise team but they would worry me as a team that probably needs to take more of a step back than they did.

The most interesting team is Miami. Their salary cap issues and roster issues have flown under the radar of the excitement of a playoff season, re-signing some star players, and the general likeability of their head coach. If we do not include the practice squad only 55% of the team is returning from last season. That is a very low number for a team that was a one and done playoff team. If we include the practice squad though we jump to nearly 65% so they are really hoping that some low cost players from last season can fill roles on the active roster this year. If it works they could have a nice setup for the future. If not expect a lot of criticism on the front office.

I think we are all caught up with all of the roster cuts from the last few days as well as today’s practice squad signings so with that in mind I have made the move to change all of the team salary cap numbers on OTC to reflect the regular season accounting rules rather than the top 51 offseason rules. Please note that the NFL does not make this change until next week so teams that are being shown as over the cap are still under the cap per official rules.

Late next week I will do a few more cap updates dealing with the 2025 season. Currently I do not have carryover estimates in for 2025. I will add those in next week once the roster movement is all complete so you can have a better idea about each teams real future salary cap situation. In addition I will update the estimates for the NFL’s 2025 salary cap limit. Whenever I do that I will make a note of it on X.

Based on our estimates the teams that have some salary cap work to do for this season include the Panthers, Ravens, Falcons, Bills, Vikings, Broncos, Saints, and Giants. The first four teams look to be over the cap while the others have less than $3 million in room. Once Hassan Reddick reports to the Jets they will also be over the cap so you can add them to the list of teams that need to free up some space. To free up space expect some injury settlements for players on IR and a possible restructure or two to bring some cap charges down for 2024. You can view our current salary cap space estimates on our Salary Cap page.