COWBOYS WILL CARRY $9.675 MILLION IN T.O. DEAD MONEY

The decision to cut receiver Terrell Owens means that the Dallas Cowboys will carry $9.675 million on the books in 2009 for a player (“the player”) who isn’t on the team. We addressed a couple of weeks ago the potential cap consequences of cutting Owens. Here’s a quick summary. Having Owens on the team would have cost $8.995 million in 2009 cap space, barring a conversion of his $3.1 million roster bonus into a guaranteed payment, which would have reduced that specific portion of the cap charge. So, technically, cutting him requires the Cowboys to consume only $680,000 in additional cap space. But the move saves $5.67 million in the cash that would have been paid to Owens this year, and it clears him off the books in the unlikely event that the salary cap remains in place for 2010. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is widely believed to prefer an NFL without a salary cap. In this one situation, however, having a cap for another year would help his franchise.