The terminated contracts of nine players will count roughly $25 million in dead money on the Green Bay Packers’ salary cap during the 2022 season. Dead money occurs on the cap when a future proration is accelerated by a contract termination made by the team.
For instance, let’s say a player signs a three-year contract with a $3 million signing bonus. The bonus doesn’t hit the cap all in Year 1; it’s prorated $1 million on the cap for each of the three years. So, if the player is released after his second season, the remaining $1 million must be accelerated onto the team’s cap as dead money that year.
Some real-life examples will help clarify. Below, we’ll break down how the Packers got to $24,630,944 in dead money in 2022. It’s an abnormally high amount for the franchise, but sometimes dead money is the cost of doing business when a team is all-in and going for a title with a future Hall of Fame quarterback.
The toughest part about dead money? It’s paying precious cap dollars to a player no longer on the team. And in some cases, it’s allocating more cap space to a player that eventually returns.
Here are the nine terminated contracts adding extra dead money to the Packers’ salary cap in 2022: