Marcus Spears - Pro Football Rumors

Marcus Spears Retires

April 5th, 2014 at 3:27pm CST by Rob DiRe

Former Cowboy and Raven Marcus Spears is retiring from the NFL, after nine seasons. This was announced by the SEC network via twitter, as Spears and former NFL defensive lineman Anthony McFarland will be joining the network as college football analysts.

Spears spent most of his career with the Cowboys, playing defensive end. The team hoped that he would emerge as a pass rushing threat to complement DeMarcus Ware, but Spears struggled to produce, only amassing 10 sacks for his career. Spears also struggled in run defense at times during his NFL tenure. He had not started more than seven games since the 2009 season.

Spears took to Twitter to express his gratefulness to the SEC Network.

Panthers Tops In “Dead Money”

February 18th, 2014 at 8:36pm CST by Matt Feminis

Thanks in large part to last season’s trade of Jon Beason, the Panthers have $17.8MM in “dead money,” more than any team in the league, according to ESPN.com’s Kevin Seifert (full chart here). “Dead money” is defined as cap space consumed by players no longer on the roster, whether they retired, were released or traded. The numbers will fluctuate as rosters continue to evolve, but listed below are the five teams with at least $10MM worth of “dead money” at present time, including the players accounting for most of the sunk costs:

Panthers ($17.8MM): Beason ($8MM), Jordan Gross ($5.6MM), James Anderson ($2.8MM)
Bills ($12.1MM): Ryan Fitzpatrick ($8MM), Mark Anderson ($3MM), Rian Lindell ($1.38MM)
Cowboys ($11.8MM): Jay Ratliff ($6.9MM), Nate Livings ($2.1MM), Marcus Spears ($1.4mM), Sean Lissemore ($1.2MM)
Saints ($10.5MM): Roman Harper ($3.7MM), Jabari Greer ($2.7MM), Will Smith ($2.4MM), Garrett Hartley ($1MM)
Cardinals ($10.1MM): Levi Brown ($6.5MM), Adam Snyder ($3MM)

At the other end of the spectrum, six teams have less than $1MM in “dead money”: Jets, Rams, Buccaneers, Colts, Seahawks and Bengals.