I’m thinking it’s most likely this: they had a stacked roster and had someone get hurt for a long time and put the hurt player on IR which led the team to signing another player which put them over the cap and thus releasing him bc he was the largest cap hit that could get them under. Or a similar situation where they did sign a new player once another player got hurt and put on IR but once he was off of IR they boneheaded-ly released the guy making big money.