Thank you so much for doing this Kdawg, being English I don't understand the whole salary cap thing, it's way too complex but I've learned a lot about where we stand reading your summary, so that's much appreciated.
No prob.
The main thing to take away is:
I signed ZERO free agents. I only kept our own. I did that because Miami needs to buy a year on relying on the young talent they have brought in from the 16 to 18 drafts while contracts from Suh/Branch/Alonso run its course. This team will have more than 50% of the roster on rookie deals. Crazy that the cap situation is still not ideal but if they can have success with this group it would do wonders for the cap in the near future.
Teams just are not giving up quality players anymore. Too much money out there. So if a player is allowed to test FA, either the team has eaten off FAs recently and have a really bad cap or that player just isn't very good. You are unlikely to find gold in FA, not anymore at least.
On every contract I did . . . look at the signing bonus and the guaranteed base from the first 2 years. Those are the important numbers. If we keep a guy for 2 years and cut him . . . add up the final 3 years of that signing bonus and that is your dead cap hit . . . which can be split if we make that player a June 1st cut.
So if We cut Landry after 2 years. $9 million would be dead cap . . . can be split at 4.5 for 2 years . . . . and his deal would essentially be 2 years/$31 million.