Players taking pay cuts or getting released because their performances don't justify their salaries is standard operating procedure in the NFL with the lack of fully guaranteed contracts. When a player is released or traded, the remaining proration of the salary components that are treated like signing bonus immediately accelerate into his team's current salary cap.
For example, if a player signs a five-year contract with a $5 million signing bonus, $1 million of his signing bonus counts toward the salary cap for each year of his contract. If he is released after the second year of his contract, the $2 million of signing bonus proration from the last two years of the contract automatically accelerates into the club's current cap so there is a $3 million cap charge for the player. This cap charge for a player who is no longer on a team's roster is commonly referred to as dead money.
There are two major exceptions to this general rule of bonus proration accelerating. Only the current year's proration counts toward the cap with players released or traded after June 1. The bonus proration in future contract years is delayed until the following season. A team can also release two players each year prior to June 1 (known as a Post-June 1 designation) that will be treated under the cap as if they were released after June 1. With a post-June 1 designation, a team is required to carry the player's full cap number until June 2 even though he is no longer a part of the roster. The player's salary comes off the books at that time unless it is guaranteed.
Here's a look at 20 players whose immediate futures could be in jeopardy with their current teams in 2015...
