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NFL teams are about to gain tens of millions of dollars in cap space.
The management council informed clubs that signing bonus proration — not just unearned salary and bonuses — will be removed from the 2020 cap immediately upon notification a player is opting out, per sources
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) August 4, 2020
The NFL is continuing to adjust to the realities of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, with the latest change being a new rule that delays some salary cap accounting for players who are opting out of the 2020 season. Unfortunately for the New Orleans Saints, this doesn’t offer them much breathing-room.
Base salaries for those opt-outs are pushed ahead to the 2021 bookkeeping, and the NFL has decided that prorated signing bonus payments will follow them. But there’s just one snag: neither of the Saints players who have opted out of 2020 had signing bonuses written into their contracts to begin with.
Backup tight ends Cole Wick ($750,000 cap hit for 2020) and Jason Vander Laan ($675,000) each opted out, taking their one-year contracts off the books until 2021. Vander Laan’s contract didn’t qualify as a top-51 salary cap hit anyway, while Wick’s absence promoted a lesser-valued deal into its spot (2019 draft pick Saquan Hampton, who counts for $723,988).
That results in a net savings of just $26,012 for the Saints, who are estimated by Over The Cap as being about $9.05 million underneath the 2020 salary cap. That’s including their recently-signed draft class and any savings from Sunday’s wave of roster cuts, in which the Saints opted out of their contracts with players like Taylor Stallworth and Tommylee Lewis.
Now, sure: the Saints could get a big boost to their salary cap outlook if more players opt out. But the loss of leadership and playmaking ability felt on the field from, say, Malcolm Jenkins opting out of the season wouldn’t outweigh the salary cap savings (roughly $2.6 million).
The deadline for players to decide whether to opt out is Thursday, Aug. 6 at 3 p.m. CT. Fans should be rooting for players to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. If the Saints are able to pick up some more spending money with big free agents still available, well, then that’s just lagniappe.
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