Let’s talk about what dead cap is in the NFL. I’ve seen fans in multiple places refer to dead cap as money a team is still payING a player. If a player is released and still has guaranteed P5 salary left on his contract, that is the case, but let me show you an example.
A player signs a 5-year contract with a $25 million signing bonus and the minimum base salary in year one of his contract. If the minimum salary is $1.215 million, the player will make $26.125 million in the first year of his contract. The team will be charged $5 million per season of the contract for the signing bonus.
Let’s say the team has to release him after the second year of the deal. The team will then be charged either $15 million in one year, or $5 million in one year and $10 million in the next year in what is known as a dead cap charge.
The reason it’s called a dead cap charge isn’t because the player is being paid the money (in this instance). It’s because the money was already paid and not accounted for yet.
That said, if a player does have guaranteed money on his contract, and there are no offsets, to use next season for Justin Fields as an example, if the Jets release Justin Fields, they will be payING him $10 million of his base salary over the course of the 18-week season as they would if he was still their QB.
However, depending on whether or not they use the post-June 1 designation will determine how much extra dead cap charge there will be. He has $12 million in bonus prorated left. So, it will either be $3 million in 2026 and $9 million in 2027, or all of the $12 million in 2026.
In the case of Fields part of the dead cap charge will be money they are payING him and part of it will be money already paid.