Dawgs By Nature
Former Browns players Amari Cooper, Za’Darius Smith and Jedrick Wills hitting Browns salary cap in 2025
The NFL salary cap is always a huge conversation point in the offseason. A finite number is established based on a wide variety of variables, all related to income and the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which leads fans and media to break down rosters and free agents based on salary cap hits.
Under GM Andrew Berry, the Cleveland Browns have been quite creative in how they have dealt with the salary cap. So much so that the NFL seems to want to limit that creativity, shown by many more teams now than just the Browns.
Owner Jimmy Haslam’s willingness to spend upfront, both on contracts as well as restructuring, has given Berry a lot of flexibility that other teams, like the Cincinnati Bengals, just lack. While the salary cap number is finite, spending cash upfront gives Cleveland a lot of options in building its roster.
On the back end, and planned for, of restructures and void years are dead cap hits. In many ways, Berry gets a cheaper contract up front by paying a discounted rate on the back end. That “discounted rate” is due to the salary cap’s continued rise. A $10 million cap hit against 2025’s $279.2 million cap is just 3.5 % of the cap. That same $10 million cost 4.5% of the 2023 salary cap.
That doesn’t mean that the following $61 million in dead salary cap doesn’t matter, but it was planned for as a way to try to build the roster the last few years at a cheaper rate.
In total, 13 players (11 former and two current) make up that huge amount of dead money against the salary cap (all numbers from Over the Cap):
Bell and Watson were both released from their rookie contracts and brought back later. Cooper, Smith and DTR were traded with void years and signing bonuses hitting Cleveland’s cap for the two veterans. Wills and Winston both hit free agency but had void years on their contracts that led to the dead cap hit this season.
Tomlinson and Thornhill were post-June 1st releases (more coming on that by Monday).
Cooper, Wills and Deaton remain free agents as the calendar moves into June.
How much of the salary cap details do you care about? Does the math interest you, frustrate you or bore you? How do you feel about the huge dead cap the Browns have heading into 2025 season?
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