The Bears have the most dead money in the NFL
NFL salary cap expert Jason OTC posted a list of the NFL teams with the most "Dead money" in the salary cap currently.
First of all, dead money is the salary cap space a team must allocate to a particular player who has been cut or traded. It serves as a device to ensure that every dollar a team has paid players is eventually allocated to that team's salary cap. Basically, it means that you have to be very careful with the long-term money you give out to a player.
Here is the list:
1. Bears- $45.2M2. Seahawks- $40.6M3. Eagles- $36.5M4. Texans- $35.6M5. Saints- $29.4M6. Packers- $24.6M7. Steelers- $24M8. Raiders- $23.3M9. Jaguars- $23.1M10. Vikings- $22.1M
As you can see, the Chicago Bears are first on the list. This is not the list you want to be first on...
Even though most of this dead cap has been created by Ryan Poles in the last few weeks by cutting players like Tarik Cohen and Eddie Goldman or by trading Khalil Mack, the true problem started with the prior general manager Ryan Pace. He was the one that gave out so many big, long-term contracts to these guys. He was trying to make some huge swings in order to save his job but it backfired and now Poles is the one that has to clean up the mess.
Notwithstanding all of the dead cap, I think Ryan Poles has done an excellent job so far in making the hard decisions. Hopefully, this means more success in the near future for the Bears!
