The Falcons made history when they traded Matt Ryan to the Colts this offseason. As a result of the trade, the Falcons were left with a record-breaking $40.5MM in dead cap. Thanks to the Ryan trade (as well as the trade of Julio Jones and the release of Dante Fowler), the Falcons lead the NFL with a whopping $63MM in dead cap heading into next season.
For a team that’s probably not looking to compete in 2022, this isn’t the biggest deal in the world. For competitive squads, a hefty dead cap charge could drastically limit their ability to add to their squad following final roster cuts and into the regular season. A team’s current dead cap commitment could also influence who they decide to cut at the end of the preseason.
So which teams have the most dead cap on their books? We’ve listed them in order below (h/t to Sportrac):
- Atlanta Falcons: $63,209,124
- Chicago Bears: $57,643,341
- Philadelphia Eagles: $54,915,221
- Houston Texans: $52,289,341
- Seattle Seahawks: $46,022,390
- New Orleans Saints: $33,347,982
- Pittsburgh Steelers: $30,863,174
- Las Vegas Raiders: $29,441,565
- New York Giants: $29,262,372
- Green Bay Packers: $24,628,608
- Carolina Panthers: $23,507,283
- Dallas Cowboys: $22,713,132
- Minnesota Vikings: $22,092,189
- Jacksonville Jaguars: $21,852,872
- Detroit Lions: $20,324,288
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers: $19,445,910
- Cleveland Browns: $18,774,054
- Buffalo Bills: $16,601,356
- Denver Broncos: $14,938,136
- Tennessee Titans: $14,290,108
- Los Angeles Rams: $13,522,002
- Baltimore Ravens: $12,292,703
- Arizona Cardinals: $10,278,530
- Cincinnati Bengals: $9,592,578
- New England Patriots: $9,158,009
- Miami Dolphins: $8,483,400
- Kansas City Chiefs: $7,982,236
- Indianapolis Colts: $7,037,428
- San Francisco 49ers: $6,495,221
- Washington Commanders: $6,300,496
- Los Angeles Chargers: $3,661,167
- New York Jets: $2,092,411
It’s been awhile since the Jets were the best in the league at anything.
But they’re good and used to being 32 out of 32
Joe Douglas has done an excellent job spreading out contracts and cutting dead wood.
This is why I will never understand how come teams that aren’t competing don’t take the cap hit in the current year instead of kicking the can down the road.
I suppose the Eagles would have added 2 years to Howie’s current extension had he finished first on this list.
Cox, Jackson, and Barnett take up the majority of that.
Funny how Ryan Pace ended up in Atlanta so he can have a part in the 1-2 finish in the most waste of an owners money sweepstakes. After all, It is his classic failure that Poles had to eat to start his GM career. What’s Atlanta thinking? Good Luck with dat.
Is Chicago’s dead cap from Khalil Mack?
Yes. and Nick Foles, Andy Dalton, Eddie Goldman, Jimmy Graham and so on. 24 million of that dead cap is just from Mack though
I assume a big dead cap is sorta a good thing in looking to the future year’s available cap spending, correct? This is assuming they don’t have more expected bad contracts in the future year.