Sean Lee
Lee is due to make around $4.5 million in salary this year, $3.5 million of it could be avoided if traded or released. His base salary of $2 million includes $1 million in guarantees, but the team most likely has some level of offset clause there and Lee would certainly be picked up by another team for more than $1 million unless he chose to retire. His $1 million signing bonus is a sunk cost, though.
His roster bonuses make up the other $1.5 million of the deal and isn’t guaranteed. Dallas would certainly rather have him than not, but the club is paying Jaylon Smith a lot of coin and invested in Leighton Vander Esch, who the team thinks is fully recovered after neck surgery. With standout reserve LB Joe Thomas returning for a year and some hope in a youngster like Luke Gifford, the long-time leader of the Dallas defense could be a casualty in a worst-case scenario.
Team leaders like he and Crawford mean a lot to the front office, but less so to a new coaching regime.