There are a number of key dates on the NFL calendar, which now basically stretches the entire year despite having the shortest regular season of the major sports in the United States. Cleveland Browns fans, who are often looking forward to what might be in the offseason, generally have a list of them handy someplace or are searching for them.
The majority of the important ones from this year have come and gone:
- February 17: Beginning of franchise/transition tages
- February 23-March 2: NFL Scouting Combine
- March 9-11: Legal Tampering
- March 11: The 2026 League Year and free agency signing period begin at 4:00 p.m
- April 6: Clubs, like the Browns, that hired a new head coach after the end of the 2025 regular season may begin offseason workout programs.
- April 23-25: NFL Draft, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
One date that is widely known but not on any official NFL schedule is June 1st. Better yet,
“post-June 1st” because that is when salary cap math changes and big moves can be made. For Cleveland, that could mean a DE Myles Garrett trade. For the Philadelphia Eagles, the cap change allows them to more realistically trade WR AJ Brown.
It is also when teams get salary cap relief from post-June 1st releases that they completed at the start of the NFL offseason. For the Browns, that includes the releases of TE David Njoku and OL Wyatt Teller, both of whom had void years on their contracts. As of Monday, Cleveland added $3.4 million to their salary cap, but still has huge dead cap for both players:
Njoku
2026 Dead Cap Hit: $9,534,000
2027 Dead Cap Hit: $14,797,000
Teller
2026 Dead Cap Hit: $8,293,000
2027 Dead Cap Hit: $13,011,000
Those dead cap hits were expected, or at least acceptable, when the Browns signed both veterans to their contracts. The structure of the deals allowed Cleveland GM Andrew Berry to spend more money sooner, while spending a small percentage of the salary cap later on the same amount of cap hit, as we explained here:
For example, $10 million spent on a $200 million cap costs 5% of the cap. The same $10 million costs just 4% of a $250 million cap.
That is still a lot of dead cap money for two players signed to other teams this year, who will cost more next year as part of the post-June 1st release.
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