Interesting article from a couple of years ago about player transactions and their effect on the cap:

https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/pi...salary-cap

I wasn't previously aware of the June 1st designation until Dirocco brought it up in a recent article from another thread (His quote of Blake's cap number next year after June 1 still seems off to me, however).  I'm pretty sure I'd heard the term used but never understood what it meant or bothered to look it up, but if I understand it correctly now it may come in to play for us this coming offseason.  From the article:

Quote:[font=Helvetica, sans-serif]For any player cut before June 1, [font=Helvetica, sans-serif]all remaining, prorated bonus money accelerates so that it is counted in the current year. For instance, let's assume a player is given a five-year contract with a $10 million signing bonus. Now, assume he is cut from the team after year two. There will still be $6 million in bonus money ($2 million per season) unaccounted for. Because he was cut before June 1, all $6 million of that money is automatically counted against the team's current-year salary cap rather than spreading it over the remaining three years.[/font]

For post-June 1 cuts, though, the accounting changes. In this case, only the current year's bonus money is counted against the team's current-year salary cap. All remaining bonus money [font=Helvetica, sans-serif]after the current year -- in the case of our example, the last $4 million -- is accelerated onto the next year's cap. So, the team would be on the hook for $2 million this year, and $4 million next year.[/font]

There is one caveat to the June 1 rule: a player can be cut at any time before June 1 and still be given this designation. It has no effect on the team's accounting -- they will be treated as if they were cut after June 1 if the team chooses to designate them as a June 1 cut. What it does, though, is give the player the chance to sign elsewhere, at any time. The player is entirely unaffected by the designation. The team simply cannot spend the money saved by giving the player the June 1 designation until after June 1.[/font]

We've all talked about Blake's cap hit next year being this big problem, but it may not be.  He has offsets in his 2019 $6.5 salary guarantee and if he's a post June 1 cut (or designated as such if cut prior) only the 2019 signing bonus would be recognized in 2019 and the remaining portion would be recognized in 2020.  That pushes out $5 million of his cap hit to 2020 instead of recognizing it all in 2019.  So his oft quoted dead cap number of $16.5 million next year ($10 million signing bonus + $6.5 million guaranteed salary) could actually be as low as $5 million if he's designated a post June 1 cut and signs a deal elsewhere for $6.5 million or more factoring in the offsets.  Based on his experience and success in last year's playoffs I can't imagine he gets anything less than $3 million to be a back up and maybe more especially if he's brought in somewhere to start short term.  

Realistically though, Blake's cap hit could (and probably should) be under $10 million for next year as a post June 1st cut designee and with a partial offset which makes it much more likely that he is cut and not brought back assuming that there is a solid plan to replace him going into the offseason.  The important part about cutting Blake early in the process and designating him as a post June 1 cut is that he will be able to find a larger salary in the thick of free agency which then affects his dead cap bottom line here with the offsets.  If I'm understanding this all correctly, I don't see how he isn't cut prior to the start of free agency.

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