The contracts of four players from the Green Bay Packers voided on Monday. Linebacker De’Vondre Campbell, cornerbacks Kevin King and Chandon Sullivan and tight end Robert Tonyan all had contracts voiding on Feb. 21.
The acceleration of dead money from the four contracts onto the Packers’ 2022 salary cap amounts to $6,657,600.
The individual amounts:
– King $3,000,000
– Tonyan $1,879,200
– Sullivan $970,400
– Campbell $808,00
The Packers signed all four players to new, one-year deals last offseason. In each contract, the team added void years to spread out the impact of a signing bonus and lower the hit on the cap in 2021. The issue with void years? When the contract voids, the prorated signing bonus immediately comes due on the cap.
Take King, for example. The Packers signed him to a one-year, $5 million deal. The contract included four void years, so the team could spread out his $3.75 million signing bonus over five years (meaning only $750,000 of his signing bonus hit the cap in Year 1) and lower his cap hit in 2021 to just $1.9 million. However, the remaining $3 million of his signing bonus is due now because the contract was voided.
In this scenario, King will count $3 million on the cap even if he doesn’t play in Green Bay in 2022.
If the Packers re-signed any of the four players, the dead money would remain on the cap in addition to any new salary. The Packers would have needed to come to an agreement on extensions with the four players to avoid the dead money hitting the cap.
The team can still re-sign any of the four players, including Campbell, an All-Pro in 2021. But now all four players will be free agents, and all four will be expected to hit the open market.
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