Arizona Cardinals sign seven players from practice squad to future contracts for 2020

The Arizona Cardinals offseason is officially underway and it starts with some not so big news.

The team announced the signing of seven players to future contracts for the 2020 NFL season.

What are futures contracts, exactly? This breakdown from Bleacher Report from a couple of years ago is a great refresher if you’ve forgotten. Here are the important parts.

It’s the same as a regular active-roster contract, with the regular rules for minimum veteran salaries, cap charges, signing bonuses, etc. The only difference is that it doesn’t take effect until the start of the next League Year.

Teams can sign players to futures contracts as soon as the previous regular season is over, but the contract won’t count against the salary cap or 53-man limit. Instead, it’ll count against the salary cap and 90-man camp limit of the following season.

In the meantime, the player goes on the reserve/futures list and can’t be signed by any other team.

So, with that in mind, the Cardinals signed the following seven players:

• WR Johnnie Dixon
• DL Lyndon Johnson
• OL Sam Jones
• WR A.J. Richardson
• CB Sojourn Shelton
• CB Duke THomas
• P Ryan Winslow

Welcome to 2020, gentlemen.