Nick Korte of Over the Cap (OTC) put together a 2025 offseason list of 100 possible cut candidates and included were four members of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
But first, before we take a look at who those players are, let’s take a quick look at the mechanics of this cap-saving move.
Typically, the players who are candidates to be released are veterans who are near the end of their contracts, and their production doesn’t align with the contract value.
It’s frequently at these points in a player’s contract where their cap hit is larger than their dead cap hit–which are the two terms to know here.
A cap hit is how much a player counts towards the current year’s salary cap if on the team. The dead cap hit, meanwhile, are dollars that have essentially been paid to the player already but because of the structure of the contract, those dollars haven’t hit the salary cap books quite yet.
So even if the player is released, they still count against the current year’s salary cap because it all has to be accounted for on the books at some point. But, even so, there is still an opportunity for salary cap savings.
An example of this would be if a player has a cap hit of $8 million if they are on the team and a dead cap hit of $3 million if released. The would team create $5 million in cap space by moving on.
Now, with that out of the way, the four Jaguars players who could be possible cut candidates this offseason are wide receivers Josh Reynolds and Christian Kirk, tight end Evan Engram, and center Mitch Morse.
Moving on from Reynolds would create $4.26 million in cap savings this offseason. Releasing Kirk would create $10.43 million in cap space and Engram $5.98 million. Lastly, cutting Morse would free up only $735,294.
Given the very little savings that comes with moving on from Morse, I would guess that he stays, especially with the interior offensive line already being a position of need for the Jaguars.
However, I would watch Kirk and Engram this offseason, particularly because ESPN’s “big prediction” for the Jaguars this offseason was that the team would move on from either Kirk and/or Engram in favor of salary cap savings.
