Nothing personal at all man and my reading comprehension may be off but I will say that D Lawrence's listed cap hits for 2021, 2022 and 2023 are 25 mil, 27mil and 29 mil.
Now I'm not a cap guru but for just that one contract alone...
Leaving 52 more to shuffle to make it under makes me slightly skeptical at their near future cap management.
I'm just using Lawrence's cap hit as an example. If his contract has easy "out" clauses to escape these penalties then like I said I'm not the expert.
But if not, the future don't look that rosy
Go Cowboys
Oh, no problem. There is a lot of information on OTC, but you can click on the individual players to see details for their specific salaries, cap hits, dead money, ect...
So to break down DLaw:
- 2021
- Cap hit = $25 million
- Dead money against the cap if cut = $44 million
- Savings = None as it would add an addition $19 million to the cap in 2021 to cut him
- 2022
- Cap hit = $27 million
- Dead money against the cap if cut = $19 million
- Savings = ~$8 million additional cap space in 2022 if we cut him before June 1st 2022
The top 9 contract hits against the cap in 2022 all are setup for cap relief. They range from the $4.25 million in additional cap room to cut Blake Jarwin up to $16 million to cut Amari Cooper. In fact, of the 27 players the Cowboys currently have under contract in 2022, the only contract that would hurt us, as far as the cap is concerned, is CeeDee Lamb, who would count an additional $4.5 million to cut vs keep.
But in 2021, the top 3 cap eating contracts (Cooper, Elliot, DLaw) are safe from being release as the dead money hits are significantly higher than their salary hits. Then there are 3 other players who would go negitively against the cap if cut (Collins, CeeDee, Diggs). Everyone else could be release and give us something back, even Jaylon at "only" $400K in cap savings for a pre-June 1st cut.
And of course, this does not take into account the post-June 1st cuts that can split the dead money between 2 seasons instead of 1 or the Cowboys favorite cap move, the restructure.
OTC has even accounted for the lowered 2021 salary cap at $176 million, down from $192.2 million in 2020. Yet the Cowboys have the 15th most "effective" cap room at ~$16 million (I think that is minus the estimated rookie pool) while we also are T-3rd with the most individuals under a 2021 contract with 43. And that is despite having the 5th most dead cap money (big chunk of it is for Fredbeard's retirement).
I get that we all wish we had had the Jaguar's effective cap room ($76 million), but the fact of the matter is while the Cowboys are not in the best situation, they are FAR from the worst situation like the 12 teams that are currently OVER the 2021 "effective" cap (ranging from $4.5 million over to $82+ million over).
The Cowboys can't go get whoever they want like fans wish they would / could, but it is not nearly as bad as the OP makes it out to be.
