Virtually every NFL team carries around some amount of dead salary cap space. That’s money counted against the cap for players who are no longer on the team.
How teams accumulate their dead cap varies. Sometimes a player retires with money left on their deal. Other times a player gets cut with money remaining on their contract. Restructured contracts tend to push money into the future by limiting a cap hit now, but sending money down the road where a player will have a cap hit even after they leave the team. This is the case with most of the players who hold dead cap space for the 49ers.
