The million dollar question, did parker make a rookie mistake and forgo his earnings from pats because of retirement . Will we get cap relief of 3 million + because he retired ?
Here's an article that explains NFL retirement impact to the cap:
What happens when an NFL player retires under contract? Does he still get paid?
"When a player retires, it’s similar to being cut by the team, and
the same rule about June 1 applies here too.
For example, if the player we talked about earlier
chose to retire instead of being cut, t
he money would be treated the same way as if the team cut him. If he officially retires on or after June 1, the money is counted as if he was cut on or after June 1."
The problem might be that the Patriots already cut Devante Parker before June 1st so he would count as a pre-June 1st cut.
"
For players released before June 1,
all residual, prorated bonus funds are expedited and counted within the current year’s calculations. For instance, consider a player signing a five-year contract with a $10 million signing bonus. Now, envision the player being released after completing two years of the contract. Despite $6 million in bonus funds ($2 million annually) remaining unallocated,
they must be incorporated into the current year’s salary cap due to the pre-June 1st cut, instead of being distributed over the remaining three years."
So it sounds like all of Parkers bonus money hit the cap as dead money due to being a pre-June 1st cut. The Patriots announced cutting Parker in March of 2023.
But there's one last caveat when it comes to retirement, known as the Barry Sanders rule:
"Additionally, when a player retires,
the team can ask for part of the signing bonus back, equal to the parts of the contract that the player didn’t play. This money doesn’t count against the salary cap anymore. An arbitrator usually decides on this.
It’s known as the “Barry Sanders Rule” because that’s what happened in his case –
he had to give back part of his bonus"
