Seahawks place Marshawn Lynch on reserve/retired list

It's official. The Seahawks have placed Marshawn Lynch on the reserve/retired list, which means his $11M+ salary comes off the books and Seattle is now only on the hook for $5M in dead money. There had been a lot of speculation as to whether the Seahawks would designate that post-June 1st or prior, but in the end the team decided to eat all of Marshawn's dead money in 2016, rather than spreading it out over two years.

As Evan Hill noted here the other day, Lynch's impending retirement would have implications for Seattle's salary cap. As it stands now, ...

All of Lynch's remaining signing bonus ($5M) will accelerate into 2016 and the Seahawks will be hit with a $5M dead money charge. The official cap space for the Seahawks in 2016 would then equal $11,138,186. However, this figure wouldn't represent the true amount of space the Seahawks possess.

When calculating true cap space, one has to figure in the costs of the Injured Reserve, the PUP list, practice squad, and other oddball stuff. Put aside an extra $3M for IR (estimated), $1M for PS, $1M in extra dead money if the you choose to cut a draft pick, and then the two salaries for players 52 and 53. All together, these oddities equal about $6M.

Subtract $6M from $11,138,186 and it leaves the Seahawks with around $5.138M in true cap space (assuming a pre-June 1st retirement designation for Lynch).

So, with limited cap space, don't expect the Seahawks to do a whole lot more in outside free agency (not that there's much out there anyway), but it's interesting to see that they're eating this dead money charge this year with a growing cap. Perhaps saving up for another free agent spending spree next offseason? Looking to save cap so they can re-sign their own guys? We'll see.