Does Dead Money Mean Dead in the Water for Eagles in 2021?
PHILADELPHIA - Now that NFL teams have essentially budgeted for the 2021 season, it's worth looking back at the historic dead-money hit the Eagles endured in the Carson Wentz divorce, an eye-popping, precedent-setting number of $33.8 million.
To explain just how crippling that is, understand it's $11.6M more than the second-highest dead-money hit in league history, the $22.2M the Los Angeles Rams endured to shift away from Jared Goff and on to Matthew Stafford.
Ironically, of course, Goff was chosen No. 1 overall in the 2016 NFL Draft right before the Eagles selected Wentz at No. 2 overall and both players helped get their organizations to the Super Bowl.
Put simply, dead money is salary cap money a team is spending on players who are no longer on the roster.
For the Eagles' purposes moving forward in 2021, they have an adjusted salary cap of $206,998,775 due to a $22,756,775 rollover but $49,363,201 of dead money to contend with, the $33.8M for Wentz, and over $15M more on the top that, easily the most in the NFL.
By comparison, the best organization when it comes to dead money this season is Wentz's new team, the Indianapolis Colts, who have a paltry $408K in mismanaged funds.
With the Eagles' dead money almost a quarter of their 2021 cap maneuverability went up in smoke.
You don't need Ben Affleck as your accountant to figure out that's not good for the upcoming season but Andrew Brandt, the ex-Packers executive who once consulted for Jeffrey Lurie and the Eagles put the conundrum in plain terms while talking with SI.com's Eagle Maven via BIRDS 365.
"Imagine these salary cap fantasy football leagues that everyone's in. Imagine you're in a league with $200 and you have to start with a $164, $165," said Brandt. "Yeah, that stinks."
Brandt also evoked another example to explain just how massive the organizational failure was with Wentz.
Carson Wentz
USA Today
"You have to balance Wentz's number now with young players," Brandt said. "I mean you think about rookie contracts - conservatively on the high end say their $1M cap numbers - you know that's half your team at least. So think about you have 35 players on your team and they equal Carson Wentz."
The top-51 rule is in effect in the offseason and in real terms here's what Brandt is talking about with a list: Sua Opeta, Travis Fulgham, Marcus Epps, Alex Singleton, TY McGill, Jordan Howard, Greg Ward, Nate Herbig, TJ Edwards, John Hightower, Jordan Mailata, Richard Rodgers, Jack Driscoll, Boston Scott, Craig James, Genard Avery, Le'Raven Clark, Milton Williams, Hassan Ridgeway, Matt Pryor, K'Von Wallace, Nick Mullens, Andrew Adams, Davion Taylor, Josh Sweat, Rick Lovato, J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, Kerryon Johnson, Jalen Hurts, Eric Wilson, Miles Sanders, and Joe Flacco.
The Eagles are paying that entire group less money than what they had to eat for Wentz to play for the Colts in 2021.
You can add another host of names like Anthony Harris, Rodney McLeod, Dallas Goedert, Jake Elliott, Avonte Maddox, Ryan Kerrigan, and Isaac Seumalo, to get to the full dead-money total.
Yep, that stinks.
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Now the ultimate goal of taking this big gulp of distasteful medicine is to get Wentz off the books quickly and be able to maneuver better in 2022 and 2023 so as the optimism ramps up over the summer perhaps it's a good time to revisit what Lurie said at his rawest after firing Doug Pederson.
"I think we gained from the short-term decision-making [from 2017 to 2020] but there was no stage where we weren't aware that a lot of those decisions and resource allocations and the lack of volume of draft picks wasn’t eventually going to create a real trough, a real transition period, and I think that's what we're in," Lurie said. "We're in a real transition period, and it's not unlike 2016.
"We have to retrench and rededicate and allocate resources to what can make us the best possible team in the mid-term, in the long term, and hopefully compete in the short term because I think we can, but honestly, that's really where we're at."
Lurie believes the Eagles are in a transition and the optimistic part of the fan base may want to believe him.
John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on both PhillyVoice.com and YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Extending the Play" on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Eagle Maven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
