Keep Or Cut: A deep look at 7 NY Jets players who offer cap savings

2. John Franklin-Myers, DE, NY Jets

• Cap Savings: $11.9 million
• Dead Cap: $1.2 million before Jun. 1, $400,000 after Jun. 1

This is the first of a few examples in which timing does have an impact. If the Jets cut John Franklin-Myers before Jun. 1, all $1.2 million of his dead cap counts against the 2023 payroll. If they cut him after June 1st, then it gets split between the next two years — $400k this year, and $800k next year.

Franklin-Myers' random contract extension in the middle of the 2021 season has to be the most curious and questionable contract of the Joe Douglas era. Douglas has famously been shrewd with his money and is constantly dealing talent for picks instead of investing in anybody, yet he randomly committed to JFM.

Franklin-Myers rewarded that commitment by being the only Jets player to get both an unnecessary roughness and roughing the passer penalty this season, including this penalty at one of the least opportune times of the whole season. There are Jets fans out there that will still claim to the grave that that penalty is what changed the course of the 2022 season.

Looking ahead, he and Lawson combine for $26.9 million of the Jets' 2023 salary cap, the third and fifth highest contracts on the team respectively. It would be a grave mistake to allow this to actually come to fruition without cutting at least one of them.

Franklin-Myers is a year younger than Lawson, but has never looked as good on tape or garnered the same pressure rates Lawson has. Franklin-Myers' snap share is down from last year, he didn't force a fumble like Lawson did, and didn't have an interception (he had one last year). I'm sure at this point you can tell which direction I'm leaning toward.

The Verdict

Cut him. They'll probably have to do it before Jun. 1 to ensure they have enough to sign free agents, but $1.2 million in dead cap isn't backbreaking. The Jets have no business making Franklin-Myers the 17th-highest-paid defensive end in the NFL for the production they've received from him to date.