[Schneed10]

Here's the lowdown:

If you're traded after June 1st, you have all the same effects on the salary cap as a guy who is cut after June 1st.

It works like this:

When you get signed you get a signing bonus and other guaranteed moneys. All of that money gets spread through the life of your contract for cap purposes. Let's say you sign for 5 years and you get $10 million in guarantees. Then each season, your bonus counts $2.0 million against the team's cap ($10 million divided by 5 years = $2.0 million per year).

Say you play two years for the team. That means $4 million of your guaranteed money has already hit the team's cap in the last two years. There's still another $6 million to go. So if the team cuts you or trades you, they have to eat that $6 million as what they refer to as "dead money". It's called dead money because you're gone from the team, but there's still money for you on the cap.

Now, where June 1st comes in... June 1st is effectively the first day of the NFL's new fiscal year. So if you get cut or traded after June 1, then the team can take the $6 million in dead money, allocate $2 million of it to the 2007 cap, and allocate the remaining $4 million to the 2008 cap. Cutting you or trading you always means that the team has to eat the dead money somehow, it's just that the timing (pre June 1 or post June 1) determines whether they have to eat all the dead money in 2007, or postpone some of it until 2008.

It would also be helpful if you linked to the article you just read so I can help clarify anything else.