Question about cap penalties

[macbranson]

How exactly do cap penalties work? I thought that if a player is released or traded, the remainder of his signing bonus is applied as a cap penalty for the next season. But I released someone yesterday and the cap penalty was split. Half hit me this season and the other half next season. Does the way the cap penalty hits you depend on the time of the season that the player is released or is it always split up like that? Because I would actually prefer that it's split up so it's not such a big hit against the salary cap. Any clarification would be appreciated.

[MarshawnLynch]

i know that if there is 2 years left on a contract it will split for that season and next and some times it depends on how much the signing bonus is if its 200k then it might not split for the next year now if its 1M it could split 500k each year . now if there is 3 years left it also splits for that year and next but the next year u pay more then the first year. and its what ever the signing bonusis. now if signing bonus is 5M on 3 years 1.6M the first year and 3.3M next to make up the 5M. hope this helped cheers.

[Jr.]

If a player is released during the season, their penalty is divided over the next 2 seasons. The penalty for the current season will be whatever his yearly signing bonus is. The penalty for the next season will be the remainder of the bonus amount.

If a player is released during the offseason, the entire penalty is applied to the upcoming season.

[macbranson]

Explained perfectly. Thanks. Now I know how to kind of finagle it so as to not take too much of a cap hit in one season.

[kpkpkp]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jr.

If a player is released during the season, their penalty is divided over the next 2 seasons. The penalty for the current season will be whatever his yearly signing bonus is. The penalty for the next season will be the remainder of the bonus amount. If a player is released during the offseason, the entire penalty is applied to the upcoming season.

I've always wondered this, thanks.

It sounds like releasing players during the off season is more expensive. (Well, both ways will cost the same in the end) But at least releasing a player mid season would split up bonus payments over two seasons if a player has two or more years worth of bonus coming.

[Patsnation34]

I get confused when it says 'Cap Room' and 'Available funds' when resigning a player, is Available Funds my owners Money?

[brodazhiwei]

The penalty for the next season will be the remainder of the bonus amount.

[sfhxgqing]

How exactly do cap penalties work?