I mean, if he retired would that be a mutual decision to cancel the contract? He can’t just say I’m retired and not playing anymore but you have to pay me
He can if he wanted to though...
A lot of players do just retire with a mutual cancelling of the contract, but some sort of payout is probably arranged as part of it and that would sit on the cap.
In general the length of the contract has to sit on the cap unless they mutually agree to terminate it. It's becoming more common to terminate mutually because a player wants to get a longer contract somewhere else (for security), but can't leave because the club is refusing to release that player unless someone takes the full contract... so they mutually terminate so the player can get security with a longer deal but smaller money... Bhunt doing that now.
There was something several years back now when there was talk about a club signing an older player to a long contract even though he was never going to see the end of that contract... it was going to be backended and everyone could see the rort they were trying to do. Sign a good player on a backended deal, they retire early and get a payout off the cap... which is where the focus on medical retirement vs normal retirement came into the mainstream.... and also employing a player after they retire if they do take a mutual termination.
GI retired due to mental health, which fell on medical grounds and allowed him to get a payout without it counting on the cap... then rabbits employed him straight away and that money he was being paid was put back on the cap. That didn't last long though and GI went off to play in ESL.
Burgess got medical retirement for his shoulder, which I think was granted and he got a monster payout for like 4yr remaining on his contract, but he went off playing again in ESL... not sure what happened with that one and whether any of the contract had to be counted, but I don't think it did.
Darius had PO's left on his deal... he could've activated those years knowing full well he wasn't going to make it, but if he did he would've been entitled to that money. He didn't activate it, which allowed broncos to recover from what would've been an horrendous contract to live with.
An interesting case study will be Lolo... he's still got 3yr left on his deal, but is slowing down... I can see him mutually terminating that contract, but it will be a lot of money to give up. It may be more likely he gets a 'medical retirement' soon to get a full payout, but regardless of that I think cows are desperate to get rid of that contract.