In this situation, a salary advance that the player is not obligated to repay is considered a signing bonus. Finally, all off-season reporting and roster bonuses are considered signing bonuses. Due to the Salary Cap, owners are now investing a greater amount of money up front for players in the form of guaranteed signing bonuses. Thus, the owners must try to protect their investments by including language in the contract that calls for a player to return a portion of the signing bonus to the team if the player fails or refuses to practice or play with the team. If this happens, the amount previously included in team salary will be added to the team s Salary Cap in the next year.
Acceleration also occurs when a player is traded or waived and picked up by another team.
The new team is not responsible for any of the original signing bonus. Also see Caponomics 101 for background information pertaining to the NFL Salary Cap. Hopefully, we have answered any question you can possibly think of. If you have any additional questions please feel free to post them on our Discussion Forum.