Why? Because he would have had over an $18M cap hit for the Bears in 2014. He still counts $8.3 for them this year; but they can count that, Lamar Houston's 2014 cap ($5.04M) and Allen's 2014 cap ($3M) and still save $2M over what it would have been to keep Pepper3. In essence, they traded Peppers for Allen, Houston and $2M in 2014 cap space.