Why the Titans let the Void Years Accelerate

The Tennessee Titans had four players who had their void years accelerate into 2024. How do void years work and why has Derrick Henry played his last game as a Titan?

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Yesterday, the Tennessee Titans decided not to extend four key free agents ahead of 2024 NFL Free Agency. Ryan Tannehill, Azeez Al-Shaair, Sean Murphy-Bunting and Derrick Henry all had their void years accelerated and will now count against the salary cap in full for 2024.

What does this all mean for their future, but also for the Titans salary cap? Let’s dive in.

Explaining Void Years

A void year is a loophole that allows teams to tack on dummy years to take signing/restructure bonuses and extend their cap hit over a max of five-years. For example, we can use Derrick Henry’s contract.

On September 1^st, 2022, the Titans restructured Henry’s contract clearing $5.2m in cap space for 2022. They took $9,470,588 from his base salary, and then spread that out over four years. 2022/2023 contract years and 2024/2025 void years. By spreading it out over four years, they were able to make that restructure bonus to be $2,367,647 every year.

The problem with void years is that if you do not extend the player before the agreed upon deadline in the contract, those years accelerate. So, in the case of these players here’s how much they will count against the cap (in the Dead Money category) for 2024: