Philly Front Office

In the last two days, the Eagles have announced that they will be releasing CBs Darius Slay and James Bradberry. To do this they will be using a salary cap tool called a post-June 1 designation. This designation is beneficial to both team and player. When a player is cut, any remaining dead cap accelerates to the top of the cap sheet for accounting purposes. The team would be responsible for all of it right away. However, when a player is cut after June 1, any future dead cap would be due the next season while the current season only accounts for its pro-rated portion. A post-June 1 designation allows the player to be cut immediately while the cap hit technically stays with the original team until June 1. The player is happy to not miss out on the first three months of free agency. The team is happy to spread the cap hit out even if they do not get the cap relief until June 1. Each team only gets two designations per season.

As a side note, this is not necessary for a retiring player still under contract. In previous years, we all knew that Fletcher Cox and Jason Kelce were retiring pretty early in the off-season. Just because they announce their retirement early, does not mean that they actually filed their retirement paperwork with the league office right away. Yup, you guessed it, they wait until after June 1. This acts just like a post-June 1 designation, but without the need for the designation. Just waiting until June 1 has the same cap effect. For anyone thinking about Brandon Graham, there’s a problem. He isn’t under contract.

Darius Slay

If you could pick any name in the world to use to impress someone, Darius “Big Play” Slay would probably be at the top of the list. We had some ups and downs with him since acquiring him from Detroit for a 3rd and a 5th, but the overall experience was awesome. No one will ever forget that game he had against the Vikings shutting down Justin Jefferson and his playoff interception against the Packers is one of the prettiest you’ll ever see.

His contract was a bit complicated, and many Eagles fans were puzzled as to why he was released. At the start of the league new year, Slay would be due a $14.5m bonus to go with his minimum salary. Because he has 4 void years on his contract, this $16m would have been divided by 5 this season for cap purposes. Still not much. However, assuming he retires after the season, this cap hit would end up being pretty big in 2026 and 2027, around $26m total. That’s $26m that would not be able to be used on contract extensions for Nolan Smith and Jalen Carter and then Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell the following year. This was a move for the future.

So now, because Slay is a post-June 1 designation, his $13m cap hit will stay on the books until June 1. At that time, the hit will be reduced to around $9m this year and $4m will come due next year. However, since he already had some dead money that needed to be accounted for next year, his cap hit for 2026 will be around $13m. In case you were wondering, had he been cut without the designation his cap hit this year would have been around $22m.

There is talk that Slay could still come back, kind of like Fletcher Cox did a few years ago after he was cut. Do not get your hopes up. He is probably going to get around $15m for one year on the open market. If the Eagles gave him that, it would likely be mostly bonus and have two void years, so would only cost around $6m this season plus his $9m cap hit that is still here. That would also add $9m to future seasons in addition to the $13m that is also still there. If he took something like $8m, that would possibly change things. That would be around $3.5m this season and $4.5m to the future. That’s doable for us, but probably not for him. Fingers crossed he comes back, but it will have to be for the right price.

James Bradberry

Bradberry has had a rough go since the final plays of Super Bowl 57, at least on the field. He was pretty bad in 2023 and didn’t play this past season apparently with an injury. Off the field, it has been great to be James Bradberry. He parlayed his stellar 2022-23 campaign into a 3/$38m contract and then just won a ring despite not playing at all this season and got paid almost $18m in cash to do so. Not bad.

So, now that the first two guaranteed years of his contract are complete, it is finally time for Bradberry to go.¹ His contract for this season comes with $2m in salary plus around $3m in prorated dead cap. He will count for around $5m until June 1 when his salary is cleared leaving the $3m in this year’s dead money and the remaining proration for next season, around $7.7m.

Everyone wanted to cut him last season, but his contract was guaranteed. They needed to trade him instead. That wasn’t happening. By allowing him to take up a roster spot this past year, it kept the Eagles cap compliant.

Current Cap and Brandon Graham

As of right now, the Eagles have around $18m in cap space. However, this is assuming Brandon Graham retires. If he does, his dead money goes right to the top because he does not have a contract for next year. But here’s the thing, if he comes back on another small $4m contract like last year then that cap hit will actually go down. Assuming the same contract, his cap hit will be around $6.5m instead if $9m.

If BG retires, we have $18m in space now but will have around $24m on June 1. If BG sticks around one more year on a similar contract, we will have around $20.5m now and $26.5m on June 1.

1. After the Super Bowl, Howie resigned Alshon Jeffery and it was a terrible move. Alshon fell off a cliff and it was just hanging on our books for a few years. History repeated itself with Bradberry. Despite how Super Bowl 57 ended, Howie panicked and gave Bradberry way too much money. Granted he had a great season just like Alshon, but he just gave him WAY too much. ↩︎