NFL Insiders See Eagles' Salary Cap as 'House of Cards,' Team Has $81M in 'Dead Money'

The Philadelphia Eagles' Super Bowl LIX win may have come at the cost of salary cap stability.

Some NFL insiders see the Eagles' salary cap situation as a "house of cards" that could collapse, The Athletic's Mike Sando reported Wednesday.

One cap manager from another NFL team told Sando, "I couldn't be their cap guy because, boy, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, so scared that a strong wind would come by and just blow my house apart.

"Now, would I do what Philly does if I knew it was guaranteed to give me a ring? F— yes. I think everyone would."

Both Spotrac and Over the Cap estimate the Eagles have more than $81 million in dead money on the payroll, which comes out to about 29 percent of the salary cap.

Not only does that dead money total rank third to only the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints for the most in the NFL this season, per Over the Cap, but it dwarfs what other potential championship contenders like the Buffalo Bills ($31 million in dead money) or Kansas City Chiefs ($17 million in dead money) have weighing on their cap.

Accruing that much dead money may limit the Eagles' short-term flexibility, but much of it is part of the long-term roster planning by Eagles cap manager Bryce Johnston and general manager Howie Roseman.

Roseman explained in 2022 that he and the Eagles see dead money as a way to take out a loan without owing any interest in the future, per NBC Sports Philadelphia's Reuben Frank.

Adding void years to players' contracts to lower their current cap hit costs relatively less in the future because of the annual expected expansion of the NFL salary cap, Roseman said.

"It's no different than – and I'm stealing this from Bryce [Johnston], our cap guy, so I'm not taking ownership of it – but it's no different than when you're trying to buy a house," Roseman said, per Frank. "If you have the opportunity to buy a house and put all the cash down or the interest rates are really good and you're going to pay it over time, why wouldn't you use that money now and understand that as it goes forward you're going to be able to do that? 

"It's the same money. If I give somebody $10 and I decide to prorate it, it's the same $10 that's going to affect my cap the same way, but if I'm doing it where the value of the cap is not $100 but now it's $150, why wouldn't I want to take it in those times?"

Roseman admitted at the time this strategy stung the Eagles during the 2021 season, when the salary cap dipped by eight percent in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But with the salary cap having jumped by $23.8 million in 2025, and Over the Cap projecting another $16 million increase next season, void years tacked on to the end of Eagles' players contracts will likely continue decreasing in relative salary cap value over the next few years.

By now the strategy is well known across the NFL. Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow said in a February appearance on the Pardon My Take podcast that the Eagles' strategy of pushing money into the back years of a contract "seems like the way" to succeed.

It remains to be seen if other owners unwilling to spend the money involved in this strategy will push the league to limit this kind of salary cap manipulation in the future. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in May that the NFL had discussed the "integrity" of the cap system during early collective bargaining agreement talks with the NFL Players' Association, per NBC Sports' Mike Florio.

For now, however, Roseman and Johnston's ability to use dead money in order to manipulate the salary cap has helped make the Eagles a Super Bowl favorite for a second straight season.