Polk’s 2025 ($1,236,670) and 2026 ($1,676,349) salaries are fully guaranteed. If cut, his 2025 cap figure $2,203,351 would become a dead money cap charge of $4,516,233. If they could find someone to trade for him, there would be a 2025 cap credit of $220,536.
Those guarantees are why I don’t see anyone trading for him. Watching him run that end around on which he was injured, I think the kid has no interest in playing football other than collecting the checks he still has coming his way. He was guaranteed $8,214,275 just by signing his contract. If cut, he really has no incentive to play in 2025 because whatever he earned from another team would just offset dollar for dollar his Pats guaranteed salary. The Pats should be grateful he wasn’t drafted in 2025 because his 2027 salary would also be guaranteed as well.
They will place him on IR next Tuesday as one of the 2 who can go to the IR on cutdown day and still be eligible to be activated in case his health improves and injuries require him to be activated. But, the most likely scenario is he sits on IR all season and is cut next off-season when he might be interested again in football to try to extend his career beyond his guaranteed money.