Dead money question

[GodfatherofSoul]

I'm confused as to how dead money affects the cap. So, do we only count James Harrison's dead money if he's on the roster or is that irrelevant?

[GBMelBlount]

We arguably have another $10 million of dead money tied up in Woodley but that's just one man's opinion.

[steelreserve]

I'm confused as to how dead money affects the cap. So, do we only count James Harrison's dead money if he's on the roster or is that irrelevant?

Dead money is just that: Money that you can no longer use. Once you release the player, it's gone. Even if you later re-sign the same player.

This happened a couple years ago with Max Starks. We released him in like year 3 of a 5-year deal, and the amount of dead money we had to eat was I think $4-5M. Then we brought him back mid-season after whoever we had couldn't hack it, so we were paying him that year's salary on top of the dead money we were already eating for him.

[TMC]

I'm confused as to how dead money affects the cap. So, do we only count James Harrison's dead money if he's on the roster or is that irrelevant?

Dead money is money already paid to a player that has to be accounted for under your cap, whether the player is there or not. When a player is released, any paid money stays against your cap. If they have future amortized money, it moves to the year when released.

The thing is, you often hear people talk about teams having dead money in the future, it truly is not dead until the player is released.

[steelreserve]

Dead money is money already paid to a player that has to be accounted for under your cap, whether the player is there or not. When a player is released, any paid money stays against your cap. If they have future amortized money, it moves to the year when released.

The thing is, you often hear people talk about teams having dead money in the future, it truly is not dead until the player is released.

That's technically true, but you can have essentially the same thing when you restructure contracts, basically pushing current years' salary into future years and guaranteeing it. That's how you end up with things like ridiculous $26 million cap hits that you can't get out of for no real reason. Maybe not dead money, but definitely funny money in the same sense.

[TMC]

That's technically true, but you can have essentially the same thing when you restructure contracts, basically pushing current years' salary into future years and guaranteeing it. That's how you end up with things like ridiculous $26 million cap hits that you can't get out of for no real reason. Maybe not dead money, but definitely funny money in the same sense.

Actually, that is amortized bonus money. Dead money is for players no longer on roster. When you are working a salary cap accounting sheet, dead money is the category for costs to players not on roster.

[GodfatherofSoul]

Ah, thanks for the clarifications. That really does change the Harrison issue. It's kind of irrelevant then how much dead money we have w/ him, it's completely about how much we can get out of him versus another player for the same contract. Someone posted as much last week, but I wasn't sure what he meant.

[steelreserve]

Actually, that is amortized bonus money. Dead money is for players no longer on roster. When you are working a salary cap accounting sheet, dead money is the category for costs to players not on roster.

Yes, I know what you mean and you're right that it's not technically the same as "dead money." But it's still money that you have to eat.

I guess the two are really the same thing but in reverse order chronologically ... With dead money, you're eating the charge for bonuses that were supposed to be counted in future years; with restructures, you're eating the charge for part of a player's base salary that was supposed to be counted in previous years, and in either case there's not really any viable way out of it.

[KeiselPower99]

So technically we paid Hines Ward last year to be retired since we cut him before.

[Psycho Ward 86]

So technically we paid Hines Ward last year to be retired since we cut him before.

omg seriously

[Dwinsgames]

So technically we paid Hines Ward last year to be retired since we cut him before.


book wise yes ... but it was money Ward already had in his pockets from prior years bonus's etc ... we did not physically cut Ward a check in the 2012 season