........Even if another team picks up his contract? That just seems nuts.
It's the signing bonus. That money has been paid, it has nothing to do with the contract going forward. We've been over this before.
Simple math here. Let's say Cobb's contract was 4 years, 12 million dollars. 8 million signing bonus, 1 million per year.
On day one of that contract, Cobb gets 8 million, the bonus. That part of the transaction is done and completed. Cap rules let you spread the hit for that over the life of the contract, up to 5 years, iirc. The salary is paid out in 17 game checks per year (1 million / 17 = 58823.53). His cap hit would be 3 million per year: 2 million of bonus, 1 million in salary.
When you cut or trade a player, you have to reconcile the signing bonus, because again, it has already been paid. Done, zip. Transaction completed, just need to do the paper work. This is the concept of a cap hit or dead money. So, if we traded Cobb in our simplified example after year 1/before year 2, we would have an accelerated cap hit of 6 million. (3 years, 2 million per year.) The new team is only responsible for salary going forward. Ignoring vested vets having their base salary guaranteed if they on the roster week 1, technically the new team could cut or trade Cobb at any time any one be 58823.53 * the games he played. That's it.
It is my understanding that trading a player is worse in this regard. As you cannot do tricks like calling it a "Post June 1st" (or however that rule works, I always have to re-read it) cut to spread the accelerated cap hit over 2 seasons..
