On Tuesday, Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo gave one of the most heartfelt and moving concession speeches ever for a player. This includes players who were actually saying goodbye to their playing careers, not ones doing their best to diffuse a quarterback controversy.

Seasons are fleeting, games become more precious, chances for success diminish. Your potential successor’s arrived. Injured two years in a row, and now in your mid-30’s. The press is whispering, everyone has doubts, you spent your career to get here. Now we have to start all over. – Tony Romo

If indeed it’s time for Romo to start over, it will most likely come with them trading him to another team. Here’s how things break down for salary cap purposes if Dallas chooses to go this route.

Because of how NFL salary cap accounting works, the financial ramifications of trading Romo, him retiring or the team choosing to cut him are aligned in most ways.

Starting in 2017, Romo has three years remaining on his contract. That includes the base salaries for all three years, as well as prorated signing bonus amounts which count towards the cap in each of those years.

The amounts are as follows:

Year Base Salary Prorated SB Cap Hit 2017 14,000,000 10,700,000 24,700,000 2018 19,500,000 5,700,000 25,200,000 2019 20,500,000 3,200,000 23,700,000

Base salaries are what gets traded with a player. Prorated signing bonuses do not. As base salaries are obviously not paid to retired or released players, the important parts to the Cowboys cap here are the prorated amounts on each of the years remaining.

Romo is scheduled to count $24.7 million against the 2017 cap, it’s already earmarked. That includes his base salary of $14 million, which would be traded away, and his prorated signing/restructure bonuses that count for another $10.7 million. That would stay with the Cowboys after a trade.

What also would stay with the Cowboys are the prorated bonus amounts for 2018 and 2019. Those total an additional $8.9 million.

This means Romo has $19.6 million remaining of unamortized signing bonus. If he is traded or retires, that would accelerate onto the 2017 ledger, meaning the Cowboys would save $5.1 million of space on next year’s cap from what they are “expected” to carry currently.

That would also clear up $25.2 million of 2018 space that is currently earmarked for Romo, and $23.7 million of similar 2019 space.

Financially speaking, that flexibility would be a boon for the Cowboys. Teams can sign free agents for low first-year costs with increasing salaries as the deal goes on.

A team trading for Romo could certainly look to work out a new deal with Romo. His injury concerns are real, and even without the prorated bonuses as a contract albatross, a team would basically guarantee a full-year’s salary if Romo was on the active roster on Week 1. That could interfere with Dallas’ ability to make a trade.

If no trade can be made,there is also a possibility Romo could allow the club to release him as what was formerly known as a June 1st cap casualty. If that were the case, then only the 2017 prorated bonus amount ($10.7 million) would hit the cap , giving Dallas the savings of Romo’s entire 2017 base salary, $14 million.

If that were the case, then the $8.9 million prorated amounts for 2018 and 2019 would then be on the 2018 salary cap as dead money.

That would mean the Cowboys would save $10.6 million on the 2018 cap, and still the same $23.7 million in 2019 space.

If someone looks at future years as parts of the salary cap that are already accounted for, then these are savings. If someone looks at each year individually, then the dead money that would be on the books would be looked at as a negative.