A lot of football things have happened regarding the Dallas Cowboys since last season ended. One of the less than awesome things that has happened to the Cowboys over the last few months was the retirement of longtime center Travis Frederick. Fredbeard was a fan-favorite, a great player, and a model citizen in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Losing his presence on the team week in and week out will have an impact.
There is more than nostalgia floating around when players retire, there are decisions to be made about salary cap finances. As we are now in the first week of June, the Cowboys are making a roster designation that is affected by that date.
The Cowboys are designating Travis Frederick as a post June 1st cut
When a team moves on from a player (like if they release them, or in Frederick’s case, the player retires), if the team in question chooses to do it (from a bookkeeping sense) before June 1st of a given year, then what is left of that player’s bonus money accelerates into that year.
NFL teams can wait until after June 1st to technically move on from these players, though, and if they do, they can split the impact of what is left on a player’s contract beyond the current year into the next. The Cowboys did this with Tony Romo three years ago and are doing it again with Travis Frederick. Here is OverTheCap’s explanation of June 1st cuts from back in 2013.
One of the questions I get a lot deals with what a “post June 1” cut is and how designating someone a June 1 cut helps my team. So lets talk a bit about that today.
What we are talking about here deals strictly with the acceleration of prorated bonus money onto the current years salary cap. The NFL essentially breaks up its salary cap accounting for bonuses into two periods with June 1 being the trigger date. When a player is removed from a players roster prior to June 1st all his remaining unamortized bonus money immediately accelerates onto the salary cap. To illustrate this we see how the Kansas City Chiefs gave Steve Breaston a $5 million dollar signing bonus in 2011, which was accounted as $1 million in yearly expenses over the course of his 5 year contract. When he was released just the other day he had only completed 2 years of his 5 year contract meaning the Chiefs salary cap had only accounted for $2 million of the $5 million paid in 2011. The balance of $3 million dollars immediately accelerates onto the Chiefs 2013 salary cap.
After June 1 the NFL changes the way the acceleration works. After June 1st only the current years expense remains on the books after the player is released. The balance accelerates onto the following years salary cap. So in Breastons case had the Chiefs waited until June 1st to release him his salary cap charge in 2013 would have been $1 million and in 2014 he still would be on the books at $2 million dollars.
Teams typically utilize this designation when they need or prefer more salary cap space in the here and now. Going back to the Romo example, there were many people that wanted to see the Cowboys absorb the entire remainder of his money in 2017 so as not to financially damage another year while the team had Dak Prescott on his rookie contract, but hey, things happen.
Now that you know exactly what a June 1st cut is, here are the exact terms that Frederick’s contract will count against the Cowboys cap both in 2020 and in 2021.
Travis Frederick announced in March he would retire. For salary cap reasons, Cowboys waited until after June 1 to process the transaction. Retirement could have created $11.04M in dead money vs. 2020 cap. Instead, he’ll count $4.975M this year and $6.065M in 2021.
— Michael Gehlken (@GehlkenNFL) June 4, 2020
Obviously saving themselves $6.065M in salary cap space here in 2020 helps them with rookie deals and bringing in any other veteran help they may be looking at.