Dawgs By Nature
June 2nd marks the day when Andrew Berry gets some salary cap relief — why is that?
The Cleveland Browns are in the middle of their offseason programs, but they are about to get a little bit of a boost when it comes to their available cap space.
You may have heard the phrase "post-June 1st designation" when general manager Andrew Berry has released veteran players in the past. That time is coming up soon — on Monday, June 2nd, to be specific. Let's remind ourselves who the Browns gave those designations to earlier this offseason:
Heading into June, the Browns were taking a $5.864 million cap hit for Thornhill. Effective June 2nd, that number gets reduced to $2.284 million, freeing up $3.58 million in cap space for 2025.
Similarly, Tomlinson was still carrying a cap number of $11.54 million in 2025 through June. Now, effective June 2nd, he will only count as $5.04 million in dead cap toward 2025, a savings of $6.5 million in 2026.
Together, the savings add up to about $10.08 million, which gives Browns general manager Andrew Berry a little more flexibility to do what he wants — either adding a player, extending a contract, restructuring a contract, or having more cap space to roll over into next season. Also, keep in mind that this doesn’t mean the Browns are completely off the hook when it comes to the likes of Thornhill and Tomlinson. For example, in 2026, they will still carry about $12.11 million in dead cap space for Tomlinson. But with the NFL salary cap increasing each year, those are the types of deferred wastes that Berry has been more than happy to take on if it means improving the team in the present.
Those aren’t the only two players who account for dead cap space for the Browns in 2025. In fact, the Browns’ dead cap cost in 2025 is over $60 million. How did it get that high? See the former list of Browns the team is still accounting for here.
