I was interested to see that the Dolphins are wearing $13.136M in Dead Money towards the cap. Biggest culprits are Brandon Marshall $5.5M, Vernon Carey $4.8M and Yeremiah Bell $1.85M, the others were Tim Dobbins $600K, AJ Edds $238.5K, Matt Roth $123.5K and Frank Kearse $23.576K. (It seems a long time since we said goodbye to Roth)
Granted, if players aren't going to fit, it's better to pull the plug, but it would be nice to have an extra $13M available for a couple of top players. Who has the responsibility for minimizing the deadmoney towards the cap? Is this strictly Ireland or is it a shared responsibility between GM and Head Coach? Welcome thoughts on better ways to minimize the deadmoney...
Usually, contracts are the province of the GM and the FO, not the HC. However, I think contract ramifications certainly complicate HC's decisions. I'm sure all teams make compromises on personnel because of it.
The best way to minimize dead money is to front-load rather than back-load contracts. For example, the Bills have made news with two big contracts in the last two years to Ryan Fitzpatrick and Mario Williams. The Bills prefer to front-load their contracts, so Fitzpatrick and Williams will get most of their guaranteed money "up front" in the first and second years of their contracts. The Bills were "lucky" in that they have NOT had many star players they need to pay big contracts to, so writing front-loaded contracts isn't a problem for them -- yet. That may change, however (and hopefully, it does).
Other teams, in order to add more expensive players, sometimes spread the payment of guaranteed money out over several years. This isn't a problem unless the team decides to release/trade that player. Then, any of the guaranteed money that isn't paid yet, counts against the cap in that year.
This is a very simplistic example: a team signs a player and pays him $10 million in guaranteed money plus $2.5 million a year in salary if the player is on the roster on a certain date. The 2.5 million will only count against the cap in the year it's earned. If the $10 million is paid as a signing bonus in the first year, that $10 million can be counted against the cap in that year (I believe that's called "cash to cap" or it can be prorated over the life of the contract. If the play is cut/traded after the first year, the team has possibly only a $2.5 million cap hit in the year the player is cut/traded. If the $10 million were to be spread over the length of the contract, say, $2 million, $4 million, $3 million, $1 million, the player would count only $3.5 million against the cap in year 1,
$6.5 million in year 2, etc. If the player was cut/traded after his first year, however,
the team would take an $8 million cap hit in the 2nd year -- or have $8 million in dead money.
The Jets have this issue with WR Santonio Holmes. His guaranteed money is spread out over his contract, so it would would cost the Jets over $10 million IIRC to release/trade him, which pretty much explains why he's still on the team despite his antics last season.
