Jets to pay over $24 million in dead money to 6 former players

Dead money is inevitable in the NFL.

Teams will dump players on bad deals before their contracts are up to stop the bleeding of cash, but they still have to pay out the rest of the guaranteed money from those poor decisions. The Jets have had to do that a lot recently and will shell out $24.3 million to players no longer on the team in 2021, according to Over the Cap.

That’s the seventh-highest total in the NFL. The figure includes one of the biggest free agent blunders in recent memory: cornerback Trumaine Johnson. Joe Douglas cut Johnson before the 2020 season just two years into a five-year, $72.5 million contract that included $34 million guaranteed.

Johnson is just one of six former players who will earn a paycheck from the Jets despite not suiting up for Gang Green. Some, like Johnson, were released earl. Others were traded away.

Douglas has done well to reduce the Jets’ dead cap hits during his tenure as general manager. Although $24.3 million is a lot of money, it’s still $20 million less than the $44.3 million the Jets paid in dead money in 2020 and slightly less than the $27.6 million in dead money Douglas inherited when he joined the team in 2019. As of this writing, the Jets don’t have any dead money on the books for 2022 – but that could easily change as the season progresses.

For now, here are the six former players who will count against the Jets’ salary cap in 2021.