Who counts against the NFL Salary cap?

The “Team Salary” falls under the Salary Cap. Team salary includes the amount a team must pay its current or former players under their player contracts. Notice emphasis on the word PLAYERS. The salary cap does not apply to coaches, assistants, trainers, and other personnel. Only the top 51 player salaries for a team count against the salary cap in the offseason. During the season, all player salaries count toward the salary cap.

As far as I can tell there are no provisions for IR’d players as far as the cap goes. They still get their guaranteed money as well as any signing bonus/cash incentives according to their contract, and all of that still applies towards the cap. The only thing that might change with those players are performance bonuses for reaching certain on-field goals.

From what I read over at ATC, it sounds like practice squad players also counts towards the cap.

Perhaps in 2010 we won’t have to worry about this anymore.