Virtually every NFL team carries around some amount of dead salary cap space. That’s money counted against the cap for players who are no longer on the team.
How teams accumulate their dead cap varies. Sometimes a player retires with money left on their deal. Other times a player gets cut with money remaining on their contract. Restructured contracts tend to push money into the future by limiting a cap hit now, but sending money down the road where a player will have a cap hit even after they leave the team. This is the case with most of the players who hold dead cap space for the 49ers.
San Francisco will have $17,085,988 in dead money this year. While that sounds like a lot, it’s not close to the most in the NFL. That spot belongs to the Buccaneers and their $75,323,702 in dead money. The 49ers rank 20th in the NFL. The Bengals sit at the bottom of the list with just under $600,000 in dead cap.
So, who exactly is costing the 49ers more than $17 million in cap space without suiting up for them this year? Here’s the list: