Minnesota used a post-June 1 cut on Garrett Bradbury, so they’ll have some cap space opening up June 2.
The Minnesota Vikings are in the midst of a roster retooling coming on the heels of a startling 14-3 finish in 2024. While the playoffs didn’t end the way the team and fans hoped, Minnesota has been working hard to patch their roster holes and build a strong team around first-year starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy. Part of that has been saving and repurposing money through savvy moves, including designated veteran center Garrett Bradbury as post-June 1st release.
If you aren’t familiar with the “post-June 1st designation”, we’ve got a detailed breakdown for you here. The short version is that after June 1st, releases are treated differently in terms of the salary cap. Instead of the entire dead money on a contract hitting all at once, the dead money is split between the current year and the following year. This can allow teams to create cap space in the current year by deferring some of the dead money hit to the next year.
Any releases that occur after June 1st are subject to this change, but teams can also choose to designate two releases each season as “post-June 1st” even if they happen in March through May. As you might expect, this designation essentially treats those two releases as if they occurred after June 1st. The catch is that, while the players are released effective immediately and can therefore sign elsewhere, the cap savings doesn’t apply for the team until after June 1st.
The Vikings took advantage of this rule to save a significant amount of cap space with Garrett Bradbury. But just how much cap space will the Vikings save after June 1st, and how much dead money will be deferred to future years?
How much cap space will the Vikings save after June 1st?
For Garrett Bradbury, an additional $5.25 million in cap savings will be coming in for Minnesota after June 1st. Bradbury’s dead money for the 2025 season will be just $814k, with the remaining $1.63 million hitting in 2026. That’s a massive savings compared to Bradbury’s original $6.06 million cap hit entering the 2025 offseason and provides significant cap room to the relatively cash-strapped Vikings.
Before Bradbury’s savings, Minnesota was sitting at just $16.4 million in space – good for 24th in the league. While that’s plenty of space for emergency depth signings or other small maneuvers this season, it’s not enough for anything major. With the additional $5.2 million from Bradbury’s post-June 1st release, the Vikings will be sitting at $21.6 million, which would put them at around 18th in the NFL.
That’s suddenly enough to make a big signing or swing a trade, if necessary. The most prudent course of action for the Vikings is almost certainly to hold onto as much of the money as possible to help with their future cap situation. At the moment, Minnesota is currently projected to have the worst cap situation in the NFL in 2026. The Vikings are currently estimated to be -$52.56 million against the cap next season, a full $10 million worse than the perennially cap-constrained New Orleans Saints.
Any cap space that the Vikings don’t use this season will “roll over” and apply to the 2026 cap. While there’s no way for Minnesota to hold onto all $21.6 million of their currently available cap space, any amount would help to cut into the team’s massive deficit next year. It’ll take some savvy maneuvering by the Vikings to continue their recent success, and being as financially responsible as possible over the remainder of 2025 could be a major factor in how flexible the team can be in 2026.
Bradbury signed with the New England Patriots this offseason after being release. It’s why the post-June 1 cut is such a great mechanism. The team releasing gets to realize cap savings while the player doesn’t have to languish until June.
