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The New Orleans Saints agreed to a renegotiated contract with veteran cornerback Janoris Jenkins on Monday, as first reported by ESPN’s Field Yates. The terms of the restructured deal are unknown just yet, but it figures to have lowered the $11.25 million committed to Jenkins against the 2020 salary cap by lowering his base salary of $10.25 million.
We’re just speculating here, but past renegotiations by the Saints front office have involved adding “ghost years” onto existing contracts for accounting purposes. These are yearly payments (usually through a signing bonus) that void automatically at the end of the season, accelerating into a dead money hit when the player’s contract expires.
For example, and we’re just speculating here, but let’s say that the Saints added two “ghost years” onto Jenkins’ contract and converted $9 million of his base salary into a signing bonus. Jenkins would, for now, count for $5.25 million against the 2020 salary cap; he’d also be on the books for $3 million in 2021 and 2022. But these voided years would allow him to test the free agent market in 2021 (when a huge increase in the salary cap is expected) while leaving the Saints on the hook for $6 million towards a player no longer on their roster.
It’s not the neatest, nicest way of doing business, but it does benefit the Saints in the short term. The savings created by a move like this would allow the Saints to continue filling out their offseason 90-man roster and give them the flexibility to make a few other significant moves. But we won’t know the exact details until they’re reported, so stay tuned for follow-up reports.
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