The salary cap, uncapped
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2025
⏱️ 75 minutes
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Summary
Even the most plugged-in, tunnel-visioned, 99th percentile football fan can turn into an ineffectual puddle of nothingness when trying to explain the salary cap. And yet, we all understand that the cap plays a huge part in how teams are build and championships are won. So how can we untangle the complexities of the cap? Well, we can start by talking to an expert. Former agent and current CBS Sports contributor Joel Corry, who's major negotiations include John Randle's deal in 1998 and Patrick Surtain's deal in 2005, joins Robert Mays to uncap the mysteries of the salary cap on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Hosts: Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen
With: Joel Corry
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Producer: Michael Beller
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:05.5 | I'm Robert Mays. |
| 0:06.4 | Something a little bit different for you guys today. |
| 0:08.5 | This is something I had circled really since the start of the off season. |
| 0:11.2 | It was just an idea to potentially do a basic salary cap explainer slash FAQ from you guys. |
| 0:18.7 | There are so many salary cap terms that we throw around pretty freely that I don't |
| 0:23.5 | think a lot of people have a solid understanding of. And I'm including myself in that bucket. This is a very |
| 0:29.3 | dense, very opaque world that has a lot of influence and a lot of importance. And I wanted to try to |
| 0:34.8 | shine a light on some of this stuff and some of the terms that we use. So to help me do that, I welcome Joel Corey from CBS Sports. Joe's a former NFL agent, |
| 0:43.0 | somebody who does a lot of really great work on the salary cap. And I wanted to incorporate a lot |
| 0:47.4 | of the things you guys told me last night on Twitter, on Blue Sky, about what you wanted to know |
| 0:52.7 | about the salary cap. |
| 0:54.3 | What were your main questions? |
| 0:55.9 | So we dug into a ton of stuff on this show. |
| 0:59.5 | We talked about extensions and how they play into remaining money and how you tear up a contract with like Derek |
| 1:05.5 | Singly and Josh Allen. |
| 1:06.6 | We talked about the idea of void years. |
| 1:08.2 | We talked about the idea of option bonuses and how teams |
| 1:11.6 | use proration in order to work around the salary cap. We talked about what numbers Joel looks at |
| 1:17.2 | as a former agent when he's trying to understand what really matters in a contract. We talk about |
| 1:23.3 | some of the downsides to teams operating like the Eagles and pushing out all of this bonus money |
| 1:28.7 | through pro ration and whether or not that bill ultimately comes due and what that may look like. |
... |
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