It has been a busy day in Buffalo as Adam Schefter has announced two more releases from the team:

Bills also are releasing WR/returner Deonte Harty and C Mitch Morse.

Buffalo opens another $12.8M in salary cap space with the two cuts.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 6, 2024

Morse had been the Bills starting center for the last five seasons after signing with Buffalo as a free agent in 2019. His career with the Bills had some ups and downs with the team negotiating a pay cut with him in 2021 only to turn around one year later and sign him to an extension worth nearly $10 million a season. Morse’s salary cap number this year was $11.5 million, the 3rd highest salary cap charge among centers in the NFL. He will leave the team with $3 million in dead money and $8.5 million in salary cap savings.

Harty signed with the Bills as a free agent in 2023. He played last year with a cap number just under $4 million but that would grow to just under $6 million this year. His release saves $4.315 million in cap room, a number that likely made him expendable.

The Bills still have a ways to go to be salary cap compliant for 2024, but they are inching closer with each move. They are currently 5th in the NFL in dead money with just under $24 million.

In what was likely a salary cap driven move the Bills have released safety Jordan Poyer. Poyer started 16 games for the Bills in 2023 and was an All Pro in 2021. The Bills signed Poyer to a two year, $12.5 million contract in 2023 after his prior contract with the Bills expired. Poyer’s salary cap number was $7.72 million and the cap strapped Bills will save $5.72 million in cap room with his release. Poyer will leave the Bills with $2 million in dead money.

Poyer will join a crowded list of free agent safeties in 2024. The group of UFAs at the position was very deep to begin with and now Poyer joins a list of former stars that have been released including Jamal Adams, Kevin Byard, Eddie Jackson, Quandre Diggs, Rayshawn Jenkins, and Tracy Walker.

The Seattle Seahawks had a busy Tuesday, officially releasing three players, S Jamal Adams, S Quandre Diggs, and TE Will Dissly, all of whom were expected to be cut this year.  We’ll take a quick look at what these moves mean for the Seahawks salary cap in 2024.

Adams tenure with the Seahawks mercifully comes to an end after four seasons with Seattle. Seattle traded two first round picks for Adams in 2020, a trade that many were critical of right from the start. A year after the trade the Seahawks signed Adams to a top of the market $17.5 million per year extension.

 Adams never really fit in with the type of defense Seattle played and his Seahawks run was littered with injuries. He finished each of his three extension seasons on injured reserve and only appeared in 34 games in his four year run.  

The contract got away from Seattle and became a mess to fit in their salary cap. The team used $42.3 million in prorated money to deal with cap issues while only using $4.08 million in base salary over that same time frame. It led to Adams having a bloated cap figure this year of $26.9 million and a massive dead money figure of $20.83 million. This dead money number is record for a safety by $7.47 million.  They only create $6.1 million by cutting him.

The team had a vision that was unique at the time that having two high priced safeties would be a difference maker, signing Quandre Diggs to a $13 million a year contract two years after signing Adams. Diggs had a far better run than Adams, making the Pro Bowl in 2022, but he fell victim to age (he will be 31) and salary cap considerations due to $21.263 million cap number.

The Diggs contract got away from the Seahawks in a similar manner to the Adams one. Here the team used $24.625 million in prorated bonuses to $3.375 million in salary. This left the team with $10.262 million in dead money despite him only completing two years of his three year contract. This dead money is 3^rd all time among safeties. They did save $11 million in cap room.

 Overall, the dead money between Diggs and Adams will account for $31.09 million in 2024,  a number that is higher than all but two teams have allocated to all of the safeties on their roster this year. From a historical perspective this is $13.33 million more than any team ever had allocated to dead money on safeties in a single year.

Dissly had signed a three year, $24 million contract to stay in Seattle in 2022, a really surprising number for a player who never had more than 262 receiving yards in a season. He had 521 yards in the two years he completed on the contract and his playing time dropped to under 40% this year. Dissly had a $10 million cap charge and will now count for $3.1 million in dead money.

The Seahawks ended up opening up about $24 million in cap room with the three releases. They now have $36.22 million in cap space for 2024, which ranks 16^th in the NFL. They now rank 1^st in dead money with $34.4 million. 

The franchise tag deadline has come and gone and we had eight players receive the franchise tag this year and one player receive the transition tag. Here are the list of the franchise players and the one transition player along with their tenders for the year.

It is important to note that until these players sign their tender they still have the same rights as any free agent in the NFL. They have permission to talk to other teams and to sign an offer sheet with another team. However, the if they do sign with another team the player’s current team has the right to match the offer or receive two first round draft picks as compensation if the player was franchised.  Teams can also work out other trade packages provided the value is no more than those two first round picks to execute a sign and trade agreement. The players are not considered under contract to the teams and are currently under no obligation to report to the team for any reason.

If the player signs the tender the salary listed above will be fully guaranteed for the year. The player would then be under contract to the team and have to report for mandatory offseason activities. They could also be traded after signing the tender without giving a team permission. If the player does not sign the tender it can be rescinded at any time though that rarely happens. Teams have until mid July to work out a long term contract with these players.

The big winners today were the players who were not franchised. The big names on that list are Christian Wilkins of the Dolphins, Kamren Curl of the Commanders, Xavier McKinney of the Giants, and Michael Onwenu of the Patriots. Each player will be free and clear to go and negotiate with all 31 other teams with no compensation attached to signing those players.

In a move expected by many around the league, the Jets are expected to move on from tight end CJ Uzomah per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.

#Jets expected to release tight end C.J. Uzomah, per sources. Move will save $5-plus million on the cap.

— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) March 5, 2024

Uzomah was signed by the Jets as a free agent to a surprising three year, $24 million contract with $15 million guaranteed at signing. Uzomah was considered a great locker room guy in his run with the Jets but failed to live up to the contract finishing with just 290 receiving yards in his two seasons with the team.

Uzomah was going to count for $11.221 million on the salary cap and once officially released will count for $5.921 million in dead money. The release will open up $5.3 million in cap space and result in a net gain of $4.5 million in cap space for the Jets. Uzomah did finish the year on IR and it is possible that he will be eligible for the NFL’s injury protection benefit. This is something that would be claimed closer to or after the start of the season and would reduce the savings for the team by about $1.2 million.

Once made official the Jets will be right around $25 million in cap room for 2024, which would rank 19th in the NFL prior to the franchise tag deadline. Their dead money on the year will rise to $34.5 million which is currently the top number in the NFL. They will lose that position once final void years hit for teams across the league and certain post June 1 designations are made, specifically the Broncos release of Russell Wilson which will cost over $35 million by itself.

The Denver Broncos made it official today, announcing the decision to part ways with QB Russell Wilson just two years after making a highly publicized trade for him and subsequently signing him to a massive contract extension. The release comes as no surprise as we had speculated on this possibility just a few months after he signed the five year, $245 million contract extension with the Broncos and it was clear at the end of the 2023 season that they did not envision a future with Wilson.

The dead money associated with the contract is gigantic. The $85 million in dead money dwarfs the prior high of $40.525 million that came from Matt Ryan with the Falcons as well as Ryan’s NFL leading career total of $58.525 million. The Broncos still owe him $39 million in cash salary, far and away the most any team has ever owed a player they will cut. Cutting him does allow the team to avoid another $37 million from being guaranteed.

The Broncos will need to utilize a post June 1 salary cap designation for Wilson. By doing this the team will keep his cap number at $35.4 million until June 2nd but the cap treatment after that is based on whether or not they pick up his option prior to his release. I am murky on the rules of using a June 1 in the same year after picking up an option but assuming that is allowed he should count for $35.4 million on the cap in 2024 and then $49.6 million in 2025. If they renounce the option, his 2024 cap number I believe would be $53 million in 2024 and then $32 million in 2025.

This trade will likely go down in history as the worst trade since the Vikings trade for Herschel Walker and the contract will arguably be looked at as one of the worst, if not the worst, of all time. Had the Broncos followed the Rams model with Matt Stafford of “try before you buy” they would have paid Wilson $24 million in 2022 and moved on in 2023 with no other damage. Instead Wilson earned $124 million from the Broncos who rushed into an extension the summer of the trade..

Wilson’s $39 million salary does have offsets but there would be no incentive for any team to offer Wilson more than the league minimum of $1.21 million since all they would be doing is paying the Broncos. There are ways around the offsets on a longer term contract if a team was willing to do a two year deal with Wilson and tie future guaranteed escalators to 2024 performance.

The Chiefs made it official today, announcing that they have placed the non-exclusive franchise tag on cornerback L’Jarius Sneed. Sneed was one of the key contributors to the Chiefs defensive success and should be in line to earn a top tier contract at the position. The Chiefs have indicated according to reports that they would be open to trading Sneed while on the tag.

The one year tender is worth $19.802 million. While tendered Sneed is still capable of negotiating with other teams in the NFL just as any other free agent. The cost of signing another team’s franchise player is two first round draft picks but there is nothing that prevents a team from working out a deal with the Chiefs for less compensation. This is most likely how the situation would play out with the Chiefs taking less than two first rounders in exchange for Sneed if he can find a contract in free agency from a team willing to part with a draft pick. If Sneed signs the tender the $19.802 million is fully guaranteed. He can still be traded even after signing the tender.

The Chiefs use the franchise tag more than any other team in the NFL. They have used the tag on Branden Albert in 2013, Justin Houston in 2015, Eric Berry in 2016, Dee Ford in 2019, Chris Jones in 2020, and Orlando Brown in 2022. Houston and Jones were signed to long term contracts while tagged, Berry played out his tag and then re-signed with the Chiefs the following year. Ford was traded in 2019 while Albert and Brown left the Chiefs the season after playing on the tag.

The Chiefs currently have about $3.5 million in cap room following the tag being placed on Sneed.