That Derek Carr Contract is Looking Pretty Brilliant Now

It's not that it's even that bad of a penalty. It would have cost us $70 million over two years. But with how the roster was designed, it left us no outs for so many players. If we were to swing and miss on the 17th highest paid QB in the league and walk away when it didn't work, that would be fine. Many teams could get out of his contract in 2025 if they weren't forced to restructure it last year and have such a low base the first year. Loomis's cap management strategy is why it's a problem. Not the number itself.
The Falcons didn’t have to make any major cuts or restructures to trade Ryan. They didn’t even need to make it a post June 1 trade. They cleared their books, went and got an actual QB this year, and now may take the division.

The Broncos had to do a post June 1 release and three restructures, but each of those restructures were for salaries that were already guaranteed. Since they weren’t maxing out every year before that, they are going into 2025 with $70m in space, even with a dead cap hit of $32m from Russell Wilson.