Dallas Cowboys dead money skyrockets with Travis Frederick retirement

Dallas Cowboys center Travis Frederick announced an unexpected retirement. The move costs the Cowboys more than $11 million in dead cap.

On August 14, 2016, Dallas Cowboys center Travis Frederick signed a $54.6 million contract that would see him through the 2023 season. That was the plan anyway.

Frederick entered the NFL as the 31st overall selection in the 2013 NFL draft (Dallas traded back from the 18th pick for the 31st and 74th picks). The pick was panned by most draft experts suggesting Dallas reached for their new center (this assessment was particularly interesting giving how SI.com loved the Gavin Escobar, Terrance Williams and J.J. Wilcox picks and how they thought Brian Schwenke was as good as Frederick – Spoiler Alert: Schwenke started 30 games in his NFL career).

Current Raiders general manager Mike Mayock had a third round grade on Frederick. It is safe to say that Frederick vastly outperformed those expectations with five Pro Bowls and one first team All Pro selection.

Frederick’s second contract included only a $3.25 million signing bonus which was amortized over five years. This should mean that $650,000 would be the dead money on his contract now that Frederick has announced an early retirement.

Yet, the Cowboys are on the hook for just a little more than $11.3 million in dead money paid in full in 2020. The Cowboys will no longer pay his $7 million salary but will only save $600,000 with Frederick determining that his Guillain-Barre Syndrome diagnosis was preventing him from performing at a high level.

The reason for the increased dead money stems from two contract restructures Frederick and the Cowboys worked out. The first came in 2017 when Frederick converted $12.925 million of his base salary to a signing bonus to create $10.34 million in cap space. The second occurred in 2018 when he converted $8.7 million of his salary to a signing bonus to create $6.96 million in cap space.

Those moves were necessary at the time, or so it seemed, for the Cowboys to massage the always fluid cap. The adage that there is always room to manipulate the cap is true but so is the adage that the bill comes due.

The Cowboys small signing bonus offer to Frederick was the correct move to make. They guaranteed more than $18 million in his contract with most tied to future salary. But the temptation to push cost into future years has caught the Cowboys to the tune of $11 million in dead cap space in 2020.

With the cap expected to rise with the new CBA signed due to the new revenue streams and player allocation of all-revenue, the Cowboys would be wise to limit the conversion of salary to signing bonus in the future.

Wide receiver Amari Cooper‘s new contract smartly had only a $10 million signing bonus. We will see how disciplined Dallas will be once Cooper’s salary rises to $20 million next year.

Smart teams limit the amount of dead cap. From 2011 through the 2019 season, Dallas had $173,275,828 in dead cap according to Spotrac which is the fifth most in the NFL over that time.