The Los Angeles Chargers Pay the Most for Players Not on Their Roster

If there’s one thing you don’t want to be in the NFL, it’s the team that pays the most for players not currently on your roster (otherwise known as having the most “dead money”), and not just because it’s expensive. It’s because that dead money counts against your cap, meaning that you are literally competing with 31 other NFL teams with an active roster that you’re allowed to spend less on than any of your competitors.

Unfortunately, that is the situation the Chargers find themselves in this offseason...

Now, I’m not entirely sure how this works, but it appears that the Los Angeles Chargers are getting dinged twice for releasing Orlando Franklin after two very disappointing seasons with the team:

Over 7% of the team’s total cap this season spent on Orlando Franklin! That’s terrible. I sincerely hope that’s not accurate, but these numbers (taken from Spotrac) match up with USA Today’s numbers above in terms of total amounts.

Between that and Corey Liuget, who hasn’t been that much better than dead money despite being one of the 3 highest paid players on the roster, the Chargers are going to need a lot from underpaid guys like Matt Slauson, Mike Williams, Joey Bosa, Hunter Henry, and Jason Verrett this year if they’re going to compete.