One of the big questions I get over and over this time of year is about void years in player contracts and what that means for the salary cap charge of the player. Basically, the void year is a fake contract year used for the sole purpose of parking salary cap charges and when the contract expires whatever cap numbers are in those void years accelerate to the current season.

We account for these differently than the NFL which leads to discrepancies in reports from time to time. We include the salary cap charge to reflect the contract voiding since over 80% of the time that is what happens. The NFL doesn’t change the salary cap charge for the player until the contract actually voids, a date that can be as late as the first day of free agency. The other 20% of the time players sign an extension to remove the void years and we update when the details of the extension are known.

We have a record of 73 contracts that are set to automatically void in 2024.  I wanted to look at just how much could be saved by extending players before their contract voids and see what teams can save the most by retaining these players.

No team can save more than the Vikings who can prevent over $30 million in salary cap charges from hitting the cap in 2024 by extending three players. Kirk Cousins has $28.5 million in dead money staring the Vikings in the face. If they decide to run it back with him they will only need to account for $10.25 million plus whatever other cap charges a new contract would hold. Danielle Hunter has nearly $15 million hitting the cap and the team could save $7.5 million with an extension. Finally the team could prevent $5.1 million from accelerating from Marcus Davenport’s contract.

The Buccaneers have seven players with voiding contracts with $14.5 million that could be saved. More than half of the savings come from Mike Evans. Evans will count for $12.2 million in dead money but the Bucs could defer $7.4 million of it by extending Evans. Lavonte David could save $2 million and Baker Mayfield $1.73 million.

The third team surprised me and that team is the Jets. The Jets have four voiding contracts with up to $11.15 million in savings but other than Jordan Whitehead ($2.5 million saved) I don’t think there would be a big push to return the others. The other names are Carl Lawson, Duane Brown, and Quinton Jefferson.

The final team that can realize over $10 million in savings are the Titans. Like the Jets it’s doubtful they will avoid many voids. The team seems ready to turn the page on Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry and that is $7.6 million of the potential savings right there.

The Seahawks, Dolphins, Browns, Patriots, and Lions all have contracts that void but there is nothing that can be saved these as these contracts only contain one void year. The Bears, Colts, Chargers, Steelers, Broncos, Jaguars, Bengals, Cardinals, and Rams do not have any contracts that will automatically void this offseason.

Here is the full list of players, their current cap charge and how much can be saved if they are extended.

Now that we are getting closer to the end of the 2023 season we are starting to get more feedback as to what the 2024 NFL salary cap will be. Since Covid, projecting the cap has been a bit more difficult than usual due to the unknowns regarding how much was borrowed from future years to prevent a salary bloodbath in 2021. My expectation was that the salary cap has continued to be deflated due to the Covid impacts (without Covid, for example, the cap should have been $228-$229M this year without any new TV money) but that there would be a catch up period that would start in 2024, which would also coincide with the new TV money kicking in and push the cap significantly up.

Per multiple sources within the NFL that does not appear to be the case and many are working with a salary cap limit for next year of about $242 million and so I will be adjusting the numbers accordingly on OTC. The NFL meetings this week may give more clarity on the range of possible cap limits but there is enough of a consensus at the moment for me to drop the numbers now and then adjust up if there is an indication that they will be higher.

In the grand scheme of things the limit being $242 million, $255 million or anything in between is really meaningless for about 85% of the league. Cap space is all relative and manipulating contracts in the year they are signed to have low cap figures is pretty easy, so losing out on $13 million in projected cap room is nothing to really panic about if you are writing about a team’s prospects for the offseason. In general the “buying power” is not really going to change because of it. For the handful of teams that are projected to be way over the salary cap (the Saints, Chargers, Bills, and Dolphins being the main ones) this does make things harder because they were already in a pinch and will need to go deeper on the restructures and cuts, reduce futures signings and hold off on draft pick signings just to be cap compliant.

If new information becomes available next week we will adjust the estimates again but this is the reason why you are seeing a change in cap room for next year appear out of the blue.  

It is that time of the year in the NFL with the calendar hitting the “magical” June 1 date, which for salary cap purposes is more or less, the final day that teams will worry about the salary cap ramifications of cutting a player, unless he has future guaranteed salary, in 2023. Starting on June 2^nd the way that we account for releases on the cap changes. All future prorated money accelerates into 2024 if a player is cut rather than impacting the team in 2023. A few teams who used the “post June 1” designation on a handful of players will pick up some salary cap space on June 2. Here is a look at who will gain cap room this Friday.

Dolphins- $13.6M from the release of Byron Jones.

Miami will pick up a huge amount of much needed cap room now that Jones is officially off the books for the team. Prior to this we had estimated the Dolphins with just $1.3 million in cap room which certainly was not going to be enough to function this season. Jones had signed a lucrative e five year, $82.5 million contract with the Dolphins as a free agent in 2020. Jones started 30 games for the Dolphins, missing all of the 2022 season with an injury. Miami has to account for prorations from his $10.5 million signing bonus and a $13.25 million restructure bonus. His cap number will drop from $18.35 million to just $4.751 million for 2023. Miami will carry $10.053 million in dead money in 2024 for Jones. Jones may qualify for some added injury protection provided in the CBA and he sounds as if he is physically unable to resume playing in the NFL.    

Browns- $10.915M from the release of John Johnson and Jadeveon Clowney

The majority of savings for Cleveland come from the release of Johnson who signed a three year, $33.75 million contract as a free agent in 2021. Johnson’s release saved the Browns $9.75 million on the salary cap, with his cap number dropping from $13.5 million to $3.75 million. Most of the damage comes in 2024 when Johnson will count for $8.85 million on the cap. Though the numbers are not staggering they are a good example of the result of over prorating a contract for a player who doesn’t make it past the initial guaranteed years of the contract. The Browns prorated 78% of Johnson’s first two years which is a very high percentage for a player who fails to make year 3.

Clowney will save the team just $1.165 million with his cap hit dropping from $2.765 million to $1.6 million. He will count for $4.8 million on the Browns 2024 salary cap. Both of these charges were planned from day one as the Browns structured his contract in a way they were also going to use a June 1 release on him this year. The Browns had just under $5 million in room prior to these two coming off the books so they should now be solid for the rest of the season. Both released players are still free agents.

Cowboys- $10.9M from the release of Ezekiel Elliott

One of the least surprising outcomes of the offseason, this one had the makings of a June 1 release on the day the contract was signed in 2019.  Elliott was able to play his hand by threating a contract holdout after his 3^rd season in the NFL which paved the way for Dallas to offer a contract extension with about $38 million in new guarantees. Elliott had one last Pro Bowl kind of season left in him before the Cowboys wound up with three years of underwhelming play at a bloated cost.  Dallas probably used the contract too often for cap relief, featuring a $7.5 million signing bonus, $13 million option bonus, and $8.6 million restructure bonus. Elliott’s cap number will drop from $16.72 million to $5.82 million. He will also count for $6.04 million on the Cowboys 2024 salary cap. Elliott is currently a free agent.

Commanders- $8.37M from the release of Chase Roullier

Washington waited until May to release Roullier, likely wanting to make sure he was able to pass a physical before being cut. Roullier signed a four year, $40.5 million extension with Washington in 2020, but his career wound up being riddled with injury, playing just 10 games total in 2021 and 2022, which were technically the first two years of his extension. He had received a $9 million signing bonus and the team prorated an additional $4.5 million last year because of their salary cap situation. His cap number will now drop from $12.42 million to $4.05 million and his 2024 cap number will also be $4.05 million. Washington is in need of cap room with just $4 million right now most of which will vanish once rookies are signed.

Cardinals- $4.215M from the releases of JJ Watt and Rodney Hudson

The Arizona Cardinals strategy the last few years was to acquire some great players who were past their prime, basically a strategy out of the Jets “very successful” 1993-1994 playbook. Watt would play in 23 games in two years while Hudson played in 16 games. Both players signed revised contracts with the Arizona to allow them to use the June 1 designation to help with the salary cap situation so the relief here is minimal.  Watt’s cap number will drop from $3.565 million to $2.4 million, a savings of just $1.165 million. Hudson’s cap figure will drop from $4.81 million to $1.76 million, a savings of $3.05 million. Hudson will almost surely receive an injury payment of $2.05 million which will knock the teams salary cap savings down by another $1.23 million but for the time being I don’t believe that counts on the cap. Watt will have a $4.8 million cap charge in 2024 while Hudson will have a $3.52 million cap charge. Watt and Hudson are both retired.  

Broncos- $3.75M from the release of Brandon McManus

McManus was just recently released and this felt more like a decision where the team was so close to June 1 anyway that they decided to use the designation here. McManus’ cap number will drop from $4.98 million to $1.23125 million in both 2023 and 2024. McManus quickly signed a contract with the Jaguars worth $2 million following his release from Denver. The Broncos had about $7 million in cap room prior to this.

The Miami Dolphins have entered the restructuring phase of the offseason, converting $18.32 million of Edge Bradley Chubb’s 2023 salary into a signing bonus, per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.

Chubb’s 2023 salary cap charge dropped by $14.656 million from about $22.2 million to $7.54 million. Chubb’s salary for the year was already guaranteed. The move will increase Chubb’s salary cap number by $3.664 million in each remaining year of his contract, which runs through 2026.

Chubb’s 2024 cap number will now be $26.89 million and his 2024 salary will be fully guaranteed around the start of the NFL league year. Chubb’s production this year may dictate whether the Dolphins restructure his contract again or let it ride. The current restructure will add $10.992 million in dead money to the 2025 league year which still leaves the Dolphins with a reasonable $16.386 million dead money figure if they were to have to release him that season. Chubb only received injury guarantees in 2025 so Miami seems to have this as a designated decision point for the team, but a similar salary conversion in 2024 would bring the dead money up over $30 million which would come close to virtually guaranteeing his position on the team in 2025, so this is a big season for him. Miami acquired Chubb for a 1st round pick and signed him to a $22 million a year extension. Chubb only produced 13 tackles and 2.5 sacks in half a season with Miami.

Our estimates for the Dolphins have them $700,000 over the 2023 salary cap. That number may be a little misleading as the Dolphins only have 43 players under contract, the fewest in the NFL. Any exclusive rights player they tender will cost the team at least $750,000 per player as will any undrafted player who is signed after the draft. So they still have a ways to go with their cap if they plan on adding any players this offseason. Miami reportedly will designate CB Byron Jones a post June 1 release which will open up over $13 million for draft pick signings and in season needs.

In the last few days you have probably noticed a number of changes to every teams estimated salary cap space for 2023 and I just wanted to take a second to explain what all the changes have been as I have gotten more than a few questions about it.

Right now we are working with an estimated salary cap of $225 million for each team in the NFL and this is the same number that we have been using since last year. This number could go up or down by a few million (the NFL thus far has only said the cap may exceed $220 million) but it should be a fair estimate. This week we added what should be the official 2022 carryover figures for each teams adjusted salary cap. Sometimes these have some minor changes but will most likely remain constant.

The other thing that we added were estimates for adjustments to every teams salary cap. These adjustments come from incentives that were earned but not counted on the 2022 cap, incentives that went unearned but counted on the 2022 cap, per game bonuses that were not earned, guaranteed salary recovery, termination pay that went unfiled and so on. These numbers are not official and may change by a lot but I think it is better to show some of the changes when we know that some changes could have a big impact on cap room, such as Geno Smith earning his incentives this year. We did not yet include the workout bonus hold. That will reduce each teams cap by close to $1 million when we add it on.

This week we also began adding the futures contracts which have been signed so far. This is where the bulk of the cap changes came from. In the modern NFL teams no longer carry large rosters year over year so there are big changes in roster size from the end of the regular season (or when a playoff team is eliminated) to the first week of the offseason. For the most part teams will sign most of their practice squad players to a “futures” contract and those numbers are now much bigger thanks to the 2020 CBA which finally saw the minimum salaries rise for inexperienced players.

The minimum for an NFL player in 2023 will be $750,000 so that eats the salary cap away very quickly. Because of that for teams that have less than 51 players under contract, the best way to estimate the cap room for each team is to take 51 and subtract from it the number of players under contract and multiply it by $750,000. That will reduce the shock of future signings’ impact on the salary cap.

On the salary cap page you can also view each teams “effective” cap space. This takes into account those future signs for you and also adds in the impact of the teams rookies who they will draft. This is probably the best estimate for how much room teams have to spend but teams have plenty of time to work around that number since rookies will often not hit the salary cap until mid summer.

One other thing to note during the offseason is that the numbers we have will differ from the occasional official NFL reports you see on Twitter or the NFLPA reports. While our numbers will always differ (those are official sources!) it is usually more glaring in the offseason. Typically this is from two things. One are restructures of contracts that we are not yet aware of, but the bigger one is the treatment of void years.

In order to present the most likely salary cap impact we will present the salary cap charges to reflect that the contract is set to void, unless it is a contract that is designed for a post June 1 release. For example we currently have Tom Brady’s salary cap charge at $35.1 million, which is the number it will be if the contract voids on the final day of the league year. The official figure until that date would be $10.8M plus whatever the void salary is (his cap could probably be as high as $50M or as low as $12M depending on what they have in there as a placeholder). When situations change we will change those numbers accordingly.

Just as a reminder you can view each teams salary cap space estimates on the cap space page. Also handy to work with the cap is our calculators that let you manage each teams roster. Our restructure page can give you an idea of the maximum that each team can create by “kicking the can” as much as possible on active contract. Finally the transactions page will break down the various cut and restructure mechanisms for each player over a certain cap figure. Just one side note that for very complex contracts like Aaron Rodgers these numbers are going to be off on trades due to the timing of options in the contract. We have articles on the site explaining them so if you see something that looks impossible for those big money QBs who are rumored to be traded don’t hesitate to ask for an explanation.

It is June 1 and in the NFL June 1is a big date as it is the final day that will see all future prorated money accelerate as “dead money” if a player is released. Starting tomorrow any player who is released will only have his current season’s prorated money count against the salary cap and the rest will be deferred to 2023. A number of teams will also pick up salary cap room tomorrow as any player designated a post June 1 release earlier this year will finally move from the active roster to the dead money side of the ledger. Here is a look at how much each team will pick up.

Raiders- $19.75 million

The team had basically made a mess of linebacker Cory Littleton’s contract which forced them to use a June 1 to release him due to the huge dead money figure left on the books. Littleton had counted for $15.678 million and now will count for just $4.018 million in dead money this year. The Raiders will carry $9.986 million in dead money in 2023. Littleton is currently playing on a $2.6 million contract with the Panthers.

Carl Nassib was a somewhat aggressive signing by the Raiders that didn’t work out but salary cap issues forced them to continue to push money out in his contract. Nassib was up to a $9.625 million cap charge in 2022 and that will reduce to $1.652 million. $4.95 million in dead money remains in 2023. Nassib is currently out of the NFL.

Titans- $9.5 million

The team took a chance on Julio Jones and it wound up being a big miss for the Titans who move away after just one season. Jones had a $14.3 million cap hit and a $2 million guarantee this season. The June 1 designation allows the Titans to take a $4.8 million cap hit this year and defer $8.4 million to 2023. With just $3 million in cap space the Titans needed this one. Jones is currently out of the NFL.

Commanders- $11.88 million

Landon Collins was a prized signing by Washington in 2019 and four years later was a June 1 cut. Collins had a salary cap figure of $15.7 million which will reduce to $3.825 million. Collins will still count for $5.025 million against the 2023 salary cap. Collins is currently not in the NFL.

Cowboys- $10 million

The Cowboys seemed to reach their limits with La’el Collins following a suspension last season. His cap figure had ballooned to $14.93 million and they were unable to find a trade partner so they used the June 1 instead. Collins will count for $4.93 million on the 2022 cap for Dallas and around $8.4 million next season. Collins signed a three year contract with the Bengals worth $7 million a year following his release.

Cardinals- $10 million

Arizona signed Jordan Phillips to $10 million a year contract in 2020 but his cap figure had exploded to over $13.3 million this season which led to the June 1 cut. He will count for $3.301 million on the cap this year and $5.9 million in 2023. Arizona had just $3 million on the cap prior to this. Phillips will play for the Bills this year for $5 million.

Browns- $9.5 million

The Brows decided to stick with David Njoku and let Austin Hooper go this offseason. The Browns made Hooper the highest paid tight end in NFL history in 2020 and he lasted just two seasons with the team. Hooper had counted for $13.25 million on the cap and that will reduce to $3.75 million. Hooper’s 2023 dead money will be $7.5 million. Hooper is playing on a $6 million contract with the Titans

Bears- $8.19 million

Danny Trevathan signed a questionable contract two years ago and this seemed like a likely result shortly after the signing. Trevathan had a $5.7 million salary cap charge for the Bears this year and that will reduce to $1.525 million….Tarik Cohen had also signed with the Bears in 2020 and injuries didn’t even give him a chance to really justify the contract. His cap hit this year was $5.75 million and will reduce to $1.75 million with $1.75 million deferred to next year. Both are out of the NFL.

Eagles- $5.3 million

Philadelphia had designated Fletcher Cox as a post June 1 cut at the start of the new league year, though they did wind up re-signing him to a contract this year. Cox’ prior contract had counted for $14.9 million on the salary cap but that should reduce to about $9.6 million. Cox’ contract did contain an option bonus and there is a chance that it will remain which would reduce the savings by $3.2 million, but not to worry that would simply be added to the Eagles 2023 salary cap. Cox will count for over $15 million on the 2023 salary cap.

Seahawks- $5.1 million

Seattle moved on from veteran Carlos Dunlap earlier this year opting for the June 1 designation due to the void year acceleration that would have hit the cap. Dunlap’s $6.5 million cap charge will reduce to $1.4 million this year with $4.2 million hitting the 2023 salary cap. Dunlap is currently out of the NFL.