Most NFL teams are willing to do whatever it takes to win games. To provide for a competitive advantage so that the biggest checkbooks don’t end up winning the league annually, the NFL has a salary cap in place.

There are limitations to the salary cap beyond just having a certain dollar figure to spend on player salaries. Teams also have to watch out for the dead money hits — money still owed to a player after said player has been traded or released, to put simply.

According to Field Yates from ESPN, the Atlanta Falcons Boston Red Sox Jersey  have taken on the biggest dead cap hit in NFL history by trading Matt Ryan to the Indianapolis Colts. Here is a look at the top-7 such hits in league history.

7. Peyton Manning — $19.3 million

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When you sign your franchise 35-year-old quarterback to a five-year, $90 million contract while he is recovering from a neck surgery that causes him to miss the entire season, it leads a team to go in another direction. The Indianapolis Colts possessed the No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 NFL draft and figured they would try their hand with Andrew Luck, releasing Manning and incurring the cap hit.

6. Antonio Brown — $21.1 million

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The Pittsburgh Steelers receiver melted down near the end of the 2018 campaign, one that already had the drama of running back Le’Veon Bell holding out to avoid playing under the franchise tag. It seemed unlikely that the Steelers would incur that type of dead money hit, Chicago White Sox Jersey but they did to get rid of Brown. The Oakland Raiders shelled out a 2019 third-round and 2019 fifth-round pick for the mercurial wideout.

5. Brandin Cooks — $21.8 million

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The Los Angeles Rams tried to bolster their offense with the former New Orleans Saints and New England Patriots wideout, signing him to a five-year, $80 million extension shortly after trading for him. After two seasons with the Rams, Cooks was off to the Houston Texans.

4. Jared Goff — $22.2 million

(AP Photo/Matt Ludtke)

Oh, look. It’s the Rams again. After signing Goff to a four-year, $134 million contract in the 2019 offseason, Los Angeles moved on after two seasons. Throwing cap caution to the wind worked out as the Rams ended up winning Super Bowl LVI though, and it wouldn’t have worked had they not dealt Goff to the Detroit Lions for Matthew Stafford.

3. Julio Jones — $23.25 million

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The Falcons wanted to keep their star wideout and locked him in with a three-year, $66 million extension in the 2019 offseason. However, the Falcons only saw two years of that deal and traded him to the Tennessee Titans in the 2021 offseason.

2. Carson Wentz — $33.8 million

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Imagine the Philadelphia Eagles traded up to draft Wentz and later signed him to a four-year, $128 million contract in the 2019 offseason, and he never technically won Cincinnati Bengals Jerseys a playoff game for them. Philadelphia incurred the largest cap hit in NFL history at the time by trading him to the Indianapolis Colts.

1. Matt Ryan — $40.525 milliion

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The Falcons lost out on the Deshaun Watson sweepstakes, San Francisco 49ers Jerseys but they had already enacted plans to move on from Ryan. The Colts, always needing a veteran quarterback since Andrew Luck retired, sent a 2022 third-round pick to Atlanta, who now gets to pay the largest dead money hit in NFL history.