11 NFL teams gain cap space from post-June 1 cuts

Early June no longer means a mid-offseason update to the free-agent market, as teams can designate players as post-June 1 cuts months in advance of that date. 

But June 2 does bring an annually important date in terms of finances. This year, 11 teams will see their cap-space figures expand thanks to post-June 1 release designations. 

One other club — the Broncos — used a post-June 1 designation, but they will not save any money from the historic Russell Wilson release.

Teams are permitted to designate two players as post-June 1 cuts ahead of that date. This designation spreads a player’s dead money hit over two years as opposed to a 2024-only blow. 

Courtesy of Spotrac, here are the savings this year’s teams to make post-June 1 designations will receive:

Arizona Cardinals

Baltimore Ravens

Buffalo Bills

Dallas Cowboys

Denver Broncos

Detroit Lions

Green Bay Packers

Las Vegas Raiders

Miami Dolphins

New Orleans Saints

San Francisco 49ers

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Broncos’ overall Wilson cap hit, even with the quarterback’s $1.21M Steelers salary factoring into the equation, will more than double any other single-player dead money number in NFL history. 

The now-Sean Payton-led Broncos, after a failed effort to move Wilson’s guarantee vesting date beyond 2024, will take their medicine for bailing 18 months after authorizing a five-year, $245M extension. Denver will absorb the lion’s share of the dead money this year, taking on $53M. The team will not receive the cap credit from Wilson’s Steelers deal until 2025, per Spotrac.

Annually making exhaustive efforts to move under the cap, the Saints will be hit with more than $30M in total dead cap from the Thomas and Winston contracts. Redesigning both in 2023, the Saints will take on $8.9M in 2024 dead money on Thomas and $3.4M on the Winston pact. Mickey Loomis‘ operation is once again at the bottom of the NFL in future cap space, being projected to come in more than $84M over the 2025 cap.

Baltimore structured Beckham’s one-year, $15M contract to void, and the team will take on more than $10M in total dead money on it. The bulk of that will come in 2025; the post-June 1 cut will produce $2.8M in 2024 dead cap this year.