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For the Arizona Cardinals one if the biggest issues has not been signing players, instead it has been signing players to cap friendly deals.
The Arizona Cardinals are still handing out big signing bonuses that extend for a chunk of the contract and in turn helps them look like they are getting better deals than they are.
It also leads to the team having huge dead money numbers.
Dead money leaders from 2018 through 2019
— Jason_OTC (@Jason_OTC) March 17, 2019
1. Giants- $76.9M
2. Bills- $75.9M
3. Cardinals- $62.5M
4. Dolphins- $55.6M
5. Broncos- $47M
6. Jaguars- $44.5M
7. Browns- $43.8M
8. 49ers- $40.3M
9. Ravens- $37.6M
10. Cowboys- $36.1M
NFL Avg- $31.1M
The Cardinals and Steve Keim are still in the habit of handing out those big contracts numbers, as we’ll take a look at later today.
No, what happens is the Cardinals use these guarantees spread out over the course of the contract to make the numbers look more team friendly, but in effect they seem to cause problems, especially as they go longer into the contracts.
Dead money is wasted money. It eats up needed cap space. Moreover, it causes cap space to go away quickly…
From this morning's cap report, teams with the most space ...
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) March 17, 2019
1) Colts $77.07M
2) Texans $46.94M
3) 49ers $37.18M
4) Browns $35.60M
5) Jets $35.46M
6) Dolphins $33.36M
7) Bills $33.13M
8) Raiders $32.35M
9) Titans $31.464M
10) Lions $29.45M
11) Eagles $28.72M
12) Bengals $25.11M
The reason the Cardinals cap space has vanished isn’t because they’ve handed out big contracts, it’s because they’ve handed out big guarantees spread out over the course of a contract that ends up just sitting on cap space without the players on the field.
It’s an old school method of contracts, hopefully the Cardinals can get out of it.