A cap management philosophy where teams distribute dead money and cap charges across multiple seasons rather than absorbing large hits in a single year, maintaining competitive rosters annually.
The "spread the pain" strategy is a cap management approach where teams avoid taking massive dead money hits in any single year by distributing the financial consequences of roster moves across multiple seasons. Instead of ripping the bandaid off with a large one-year cap charge, teams use tools like post-June 1 designations, restructures, and void years to smooth out the impact. This approach is favored by teams that believe they can compete every year and do not want any single season torpedoed by cap constraints. By spreading dead money across two or three years, the annual impact is more manageable, and the team can continue to field a competitive roster even while absorbing the cost of moving on from expensive players. The trade-off is that spreading the pain extends the period of cap inefficiency. Rather than absorbing all the dead money in one bad year and emerging clean, the team carries cap baggage for multiple seasons. This can limit flexibility in free agency and make it harder to execute future transactions. The strategy works best when combined with a steady pipeline of cost-controlled talent from the draft, ensuring the team does not need to spend aggressively in free agency while carrying distributed dead money.
The Falcons used a spread-the-pain approach when moving on from Matt Ryan in 2022. Rather than absorbing all $40.5 million in dead money in one year, they used a post-June 1 designation to split it: $26.2 million in 2022 and $14.3 million in 2023.
Category: Cap Strategies. Part of the StickToTheModel NFL Encyclopedia.