At the moment, the Indianapolis Colts are carrying $8.3 million in dead cap that counts towards their 2024 salary cap.
That $8.3 million figure is from two plays: Shaq Leonard at $8 million and Darius Rush at $268,245, according to Over the Cap (OTC).
In short, dead cap is money that has already been paid out to the player but is yet to have counted against the salary cap.
In Leonard’s case, he received guaranteed dollars when signing his extension in 2021. But from a salary cap perspective, rather than the Colts absorbing the cap hit of those guaranteed dollars right away, they pro-rated the cap hit over the life of the contract in the form of a signing bonus.
This is common practice around the NFL as it provides cap help in the moment, but for the Colts, who moved on from Leonard before his contract was up, they are now feeling the cap ramifications of pushing those initial charges into future years.
Leonard’s $8 million dead cap hit will be the seventh largest cap hit on the team in 2024.
With that said, overall, the Colts are still in relatively good salary cap shape. The $8.3 million in dead cap they are carrying is actually the fifth-lowest amount in the NFL, and likely had little or even no bearing on how GM Chris Ballard went about the offseason.
As of now, OTC has the Colts with $16.92 million in available cap space. However, that figure does not yet take into account Julian Blackmon’s new contract.
On top of that, the Colts are going to need cap space to sign the incoming draft class, which OTC projects will take up about $4.1 million in cap space. They’ll also need available space to construct the practice squad and they’ll need reserves for in-season spending, whether that be for additions or game-day elevations from the practice squad.
So, while $16.92 million may be what the Colts have available on paper, that is not what they actually have available to spend.
Odds are that Blackmon was the last significant free agent addition that Ballard will make. At this stage of the offseason Ballard may wait and see how the draft unfolds, and then if he feels there is still a need to fill, he will explore free agency afterward in search of a low-cost addition to help round out the roster.