The Tennessee Titans wanted to get rid of 2020 first-round pick and offensive tackle Isaiah Wilson so badly that they gave up cap space in 2021 to do it.
That’s right, a cash-strapped team like the Titans will now have a little less to spend after trading Wilson to the Miami Dolphins in a deal that also saw them swap seventh-round picks.
Tennessee was set to pay Wilson $2.6 million this season had he stayed, but will now have to pay out $4.4 million in dead money (his guaranteed bonus money), leaving the Titans with $1.8 million less to work with.
According to Over the Cap, if the 2021 NFL salary cap falls at $180.5 million, the Titans’ current cap space figure is nearly $4.7 million. It would appear that figure doesn’t include the cap carryover of $8 million the Titans have, so we have to factor that in, also.
The good news is that’s the end of what they have to pay him, as Miami is on the hook for Wilson’s base salary the next three seasons, which amounts to $5.3 million in total.
That means the Titans have opened up $3.1 million more in 2022 and $3.6 million more in 2023. That, along with not having to deal with Wilson’s antics, is your silver lining.
There really seemed to be no other way out. The relationship between Wilson and the Titans was simply too fractured to be fixed, and the next step was just to release him anyway.
Had the Titans done that, they actually would have had to pay Wilson more, assuming they couldn’t find a way to void some of his contract.
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