Jaguar Report

Jaguars Among Teams With Most Dead Cap Accumulated Since 2018

Only three teams have had more dead cap than the Jaguars over the last three seasons.

John Shipley

For the last several offseasons, the Jacksonville Jaguars have been one of the teams most commonly referenced to when it came to big spending. Large deals paid out to Blake Bortles, Nick Foles, Andrew Norwell, Calais Campbell, Malik Jackson, A.J. Bouye and several others pointed to the idea that the Jaguars as a team that is active in free agency each year. 

But what happens when the Jaguars have had to get out of these contracts early? 

As has been the case with nearly every player listed above, and dozens of others, the Jaguars ended their deals with several high-priced free agents and then found themselves on the hook for one of the most dreaded anchors in football: dead cap money. 

In fact, few teams have collected as much dead money as the Jaguars in the last several years. According to Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap, the Jaguars have accumulated the fourth-most dead money among teams dating back to 2018 at $94.6 million. The only teams ahead of the Jaguars are the top-ranked New York Giants, Miami Dolphins and Arizona Cardinals, three of the worst teams of the last three seasons. 

Dead money is basically money from a team's cap space which has been guaranteed to a player formerly on a team who isn't on the club anymore, so a high dead cap figure shows a team is paying more money out to players who aren't even contributing to the team anymore.

According to Spotrac, the Jaguars currently have the second-most dead cap in the league for the 2020 season with $37,463,980, trailing only the Carolina Panthers ($41,117,805). 

This is obviously no position a team wants to find itself in considering portions of its cap aren't being used on the on-field product, but this is where the Jaguars have found for a number of reasons. Below is how the Jaguars' astronomical dead cap figure this season is divided by player, per Spotrac.

  • QB Nick Foles: $18,750,000
  • LB Telvin Smith: $5,620,470
  • CB A.J. Bouye: $4,000,000
  • WR Marqise Lee: $3,500,000
  • DL Calais Campbell: $2,500,000
  • DT Marcell Dareus: $2,500,000
  • LB Jake Ryan: $250,000
  • TE Geoff Swaim: $250,000
  • QB Alex McGough: $37,500
  • WR Marcus Simms: $13,334
  • WR Tyre Brady: $3,334
  • OT Donnell Greene: $3,334
  • CB Picasso Nelson: $3,334
  • CB Saivion Smith: $3,334
  • OG Bunchy Stallings: $3,334
  • LB Connor Strachan: $3,334
  • WR Michael Walker: $3,334
  • RB Brandon Watson: $3,334
  • S Zedrick Woods: $3,334
  • CB Tae Hayes: $2,667
  • WR Dredrick Snelson: $2,000
  • DT Michael Hughes: $1,668
  • WR Raphael Leonard: $1,667
  • DT Andrew Williams: $1,334

Clearly, the largest reason for the Jaguars' high dead cap figure is the looming number that is set to be paid out to ex-quarterback Nick Foles. Jacksonville signed Foles to a four-year, $88 million deal in March 2019 which included over $45 million in guaranteed money.

When Jacksonville traded Foles to the Chicago Bears this March, they erased any financial commitments to him past 2020, but they took on the fourth-highest single-season dead cap for any player in NFL history. 

But what about the previous years? Last season wasn't much better for the Jaguars from a dead money perspective. 

Entering the 2019 season, the Jaguars had the fourth-highest dead cap total with $36,328,954. A large chunk of this figure came from quarterback Blake Bortles, who the Jaguars released in 2019, just one year after he signed a three-year contract with the team. Due to Bortles' release, the Jaguars were on the hook for $15,500,000 to give to the signal-caller to not play for them. Jacksonville was also on the hook for $4,000,000 to released defensive tackle Malik Jackson. 

Since the 2018 offseason, the Jaguars are just 11-21 and have paid two quarterbacks before pushing them out of Jacksonville by the end of the season. Poor offseason moves like these are a big reason the Jaguars continue to find themselves near the bottom of the league's standings. 

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John Shipley
JOHN SHIPLEY

John Shipley has been covering the Jacksonville Jaguars as a beat reporter and publisher of Jaguar Report since 2019. Previously, he covered UCF's undefeated season as a beat reporter for NSM.Today, covered high school prep sports in Central Florida, and covered local sports and news for the Palatka Daily News. Follow John Shipley on Twitter at @_john_shipley.

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