Tyrann Mathieu’s arrival likely means Eric Berry’s exit
Posted by Mike Florio on March 11, 2019, 11:09 PM EDT
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The Chiefs will be paying $14 million per year over three years to safety Tyrann Mathieu. They also are paying $13 million per year to safety Eric Berry. For now.
The arrival of Mathieu likely means that Berry will be gone, a development that wouldn’t surprise many due to the injuries that have plagued Berry over the past two years. Berry has played in only three games since rupturing an Achilles tendon in Week One of the 2017 season.
Already owed $2.95 million in guaranteed money for 2019, another $7.25 million of Berry’s base salary becomes fully guaranteed on March 15. Which means that, if the Chiefs will be pulling the plug on Berry’s deal, they need to do it sooner than later.
Cutting Berry without a post-June 1 designation would trigger a $14.95 million cap charge for 2019. Of that amount $8 million could be pushed to 2020 by using the post-June 1 designation.
Keeping Berry would result in a cap charge of $16.5 million, and a cash expenditure of $12.5 million. Which makes it very difficult to justify keeping him on the roster, especially with so much invested in Mathieu. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Red Dawg:
Can't count on him. They tried and it failed. They really thought he would be ok in December and he wasn't. They must cut bait and save what you can for other players.
Yep. Let's see if they have the stones to do what needs to be done. [Reply]
My homer dream world mind wants to keep Berry and pray that he can turn into his old self and have an epic safety duo with Berry and Honey Badger, but that's probably too much of a pipe dream. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bump:
My homer dream world mind wants to keep Berry and pray that he can turn into his old self and have an epic safety duo with Berry and Honey Badger, but that's probably too much of a pipe dream.
Same.
If they roll with him, I’d assume they know that things should be different than last year... but I’ll be damn nervous about it. [Reply]
@HisDirknesS: So @Jacobs71 cleared it up for me. If the #Chiefs are releasing Eric Berry it will happen in the next 3 days. After that, there's virtually no cap savings. [Reply]
