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.
