The Bears have restructured OLB Robert Quinn’s contract to give themselves some breathing room with the salary cap.
The Chicago Bears have restructured outside linebacker Robert Quinn’s contract to free up salary cap space, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
Before restructuring Quinn’s contract, the Bears had just $800,000 in cap space. Now, Chicago has freed up $3.5 million in cap room.
Quinn signed a five-year, $70 million deal back in 2020. And while the contract looked like a complete waste last season, as Quinn struggled and finished with a career-low 2.0 sacks.
It looks better this season as Quinn has gotten off to an impressive start through five games, where he has 15 total tackles, 4.5 sacks, a forced fumble and anchors a dynamic pass rush duo with Khalil Mack.
The #Bears restructured the contract of pass-rusher Robert Quinn, source said, to create $3,512,500 in cap room. Previously, they had only $800,000 of room and simply needed more to operate. Chicago now has moved $30.93M into future caps.
Chicago restructured Quinn’s deal to give themselves some breathing room with the salary cap should they need to make a move due to injury or otherwise.
The Bears have now moved $30.93 million into future cap.
Prescott will now take $6.25 million of his $9 million 2021 salary as a signing bonus, creating more cap room for this year or beyond. | From @ToddBrock24f7
Dak Prescott has yet to play a down under the terms of the megacontract extension he signed with the Cowboys back in March, but the dollars-and-cents details of that deal have already changed.
The organization has restructured Prescott’s payout, converting $6.25 million of his $9 million 2021 base salary into a signing bonus. Prescott’s base salary for this season will now be $2.75 million.
The move creates $5 million in cap space for the Cowboys this season.
The Cowboys converted $6.25M of QB Dak Precott's base salary into a signing bonus, creating $5M in cap space.
The Titans converted $14M of WR Julio Jones' salary into a signing bonus, creating $11.2M in cap space (adding two void years as well).
Team owner Jerry Jones explained on Dallas radio that the move was all part of the original plan with the way they structured Prescott’s $160 million extension.
“It was looking around the corner, looking at what you’re going to need as you move through, if you will, even this season, but certainly into next season,” Jones told 105.3 The Fan. “It was anticipated when we made the contract, and it’s part of the contract that allows you to manage your roster. Everything about it was expected.”
The club similarly restructured running back Ezekiel Elliott’s contract last week, converting most of his 2021 base salary into a signing bonus in order to create about $7 million in room.
Left tackle Tyron Smith, right guard Zack Martin, and right tackle La’el Collins also recently had their contracts restructured in the same way. As the Dallas Morning News points out, “[T]eams are selective with these accounting tactics, doing them only with high-priced players whom they comfortably forecast will remain with the club.”
It is perhaps worth noting, then, that wide receiver Amari Cooper’s sizable contract has not undergone the same sort of tweaking.
So what happens with this new money that comes from the reworking of Prescott’s deal? In the short term, it could be used in free agency to sign a player or players. Or it could be part of a bankrolling effort with an eye toward re-signing a current player bound for free agency; Randy Gregory, Michael Gallup, and Leighton Vander Esch immediately come to mind. Or the money could be set aside for the 2022 draft class.
The Cowboys have restructured Elliott’s deal less than two weeks away from the regular season. Here are some reasons why it makes sense it was him and why now. | From @KDDrummondNFL
It’s been a while since the Dallas Cowboys used white out on their cap ledger. In a relatively quiet offseason from a drama perspective, the club has been pretty quiet when it came to making waves in the salary department too. But less than a week before final roster cuts are made, the Cowboys have made a significant move, pushing forward $8.6 million of his $9.6 million base salary into a restructure bonus. The move was first reported by Yahoo! Sports’ Field Yates.
The bonus gives Elliott early money he was already going to make, clearly. Not only was his entire 2021 salary guaranteed, but so is his 2022 base salary of $12.4 million. However, it does create $6.88 million of additional space this year, money Dallas didn’t need to enter the season in a comfortable place. Unless of course, they need it to absorb a salary not already on the books.
Elliott’s cap hit for 2021 is now $6.82 million. His cap hit in 2022 is now at $18.22 million before declining in both 2023 ($16.7 million) and 2024 ($14.3 million). There’s no guaranteed salary left beyond 2022, but he does have ballooning hits remaining in both 2025 and 2026.
It would now cost the club just under $12 million in dead money to release Elliott in 2023, though they would create around $4.8 million in cap space if they chose to do so at that time.
2021 Impact
Normally teams like to enter the offseason with at least $4 million and $6 million in available cap space. This allows them to sign free agents during the year, when injuries occur and help is needed. It also allows them to handle any bonus incentives a player achieves which were classified as not-likely-to-be-earned; those aren’t counted against the cap during a year.
Dallas already had that room carved out. The restructure pumps their cap space up over $12 million for the upcoming season for when the regular season cap goes into effect September 8 at 3:00 pm CT.
So what do they need the extra room for? Could it be that Dallas is prepared to acquire a veteran player with a big salary that can help them chase a championship? That probably makes the most sense.
If the team were considering even if they were to release a player such as Jaylon Smith, the acceleration of dead money wouldn’t hit until the 2022 books. Doing a Elliott restructure in this way does help somewhat compared to restructuring him next season, but not in a very significant way.
A reward of sorts?
(AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
The club could have just wanted to give Elliott some up front money, as he is clearly motivated to have a bounce-back season after the worst of his career. With the loss of offensive linemen Travis Frederick in the offseason, La’el Collins in training camp and having just Tyron Smith for two games, Elliott ran behind an inexperienced and pretty bad offensive line. He ran in atypical fashion after suffering from Covid-19 in the offseason and did not look like he had the juice he once did while also doing a terrible job at keeping the ball secure.
When Dak Prescott was done for the year after just 4.5 games, the entire offseason was thrust onto his shoulders with lackluster play from the quarterback position as well. That muted any chance at him recovering from his early season doldrums.
But Elliott returned this offseason in tremendous shape, and seems to have regained the quick feet that he had early in his career. That opinion is based on training videos and camp practices, as he once again was held out of the entire preseason.
He’s also been the star of the team’s Hard Knocks public relation series, as after an intense opening week, owner Jerry Jones has numbed the production down to a yawn with Elliott providing most of the entertainment. Likely? Probably not, but nothing can be ruled out in the ecosystem of the Jones’ family; it could have been a nice thank you for carrying the show through the first three weeks.
Why Elliott instead of someone else?
Still, some may wonder why the club chose Elliott’s deal rather than other star players such as Amari Cooper and DeMarcus Lawrence.
Zeke was already uncuttable the next two years, this just makes it even more of a burden to move on in 2023
No clue why Dallas would do this instead of restructuring Amari Cooper’s $20M 2021 base salary or Demarcus Lawrence’s $17M 2021 base salary https://t.co/tZGgdVpzlW
One reason is that Elliott’s deal has the years remaining on his deal after 2021 to absorb the amortization of the spread out hit. A team can use up to five contracted seasons to spread out a restructure bonus. Lawrence has just two seasons left on his deal after this year and already has a void year to absorb dead money in 2024. Cooper has just three years after this season and would need to add a void year.
Elliott’s contract is already guaranteed for 2022 as mentioned above and runs through 2026.
The salary cap is expected to balloon in 2023 so the additional $5 million that is being pushed to the final three years of the amortization (2023 through 2025) that could accelerate will be a drop in the bucket once the league stops pretending that they absorbed a major hit with the loss of in-person attendance in 2020. The new TV deals and gambling revenue will skyrocket the league’s revenue and the cap (calculated on a percentage of a section of league revenue) will follow suit.
Johnson, who was in the last year of a three-year, $39 million deal he signed with the Arizona Cardinals in 2019, was slated to make $8.5 million in 2021. The Texans could have cut Johnson, and it would have cost them $2.1 million in dead money against their salary cap space.
Houston lowered the former 2015 third-round pick’s salary cap figure to $6 million with $4.25 million guaranteed at signing.
Johnson was hardly a bargain following the trading of three-time All-Pro receiver DeAndre Hopkins to the Cardinals. The 6-1, 224-pound running back tallied 691 yards and six touchdowns on 147 carries while catching 33 passes for 314 yards and two touchdowns through 12 games, all of which he started. Of the four Johnson missed, one was due to being a COVID-19 close contact, and the other three were part of being placed on injured reserve for a concussion following the Texans’ Week 9 win at Jacksonville.
The Texans released running back Duke Johnson last week yet re-signed running backs Dontrell Hilliard and Buddy Howell.
A move to create cap space could have multiple implications and uses moving forward.
Another day, another contract trigger pulled for the Dallas Cowboys. A couple of weeks ago, the Cowboys utilized their usual contract mechanism to create more cap space by restructuring the deal of stalwart left tackle Tyron Smith. The move provides Dallas cap space this season, and if unused it goes into next season, where there will be considerably less cap space thanks to limited or no attendance at games across the NFL.
On Wednesday morning, it has been revealed by Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network the club has done something similar, restructuring the deal of All-Pro right guard Zack Martin.
More early season accounting: The #Cowboys restructured G Zack Martin’s contract to free up $8M in cap space, source said, and push money into the future.
Martin’s base salary in 2020 was set to be $11,000,000. Based on the reported savings, it appears the team has moved $10 million from salary to a restructure bonus.
Restructure bonuses are treated like signing bonuses. The player gets the money up front (unless otherwise agreed to), but the cap hit is then spread out evenly across the remainder of the contract, up to five years.
Martin has five years remaining on his extension signed in 2018. That $10 million equates to a $2 million cap allocation each season from 2020 through 2024.
So $10 million off Martin’s base salary, $2 million added to the prorated bonuses and the Cowboys net $8 million in savings.
Why more space when the season is here?
The Cowboys looked to have around $8.5 million of cap space entering the season after the shuffles of placing guys on short-term IR. That number will fluctuate as players move around and is available to sign injury replacements as the season wears on. The majority will be rolled into the 2021 cap, which will have a floor of $175 million.
Prior to the pandemic, many projected the NFL’s cap in 2021 would be around $215 million. Long-term contracts over the last several years have all been structured with that level of increase in mind, so teams are going to have to scramble to create cap room next offseason and that will most likely result in a lot of restructures and the gutting of mid-tier veterans.
If the Cowboys don’t spend the additional cap room, then the money can be used to lessen the blow of what comes next year.
For example, rolling over the $8 million in 2020 savings, and Dallas adding $2 million prorated onto 2021’s cap, would be a net savings of $6 million on next year’s cap and Dallas can again restructure Martin’s deal (and others) to create even more space.
Restructuring contracts is only an issue when a player doesn’t play out his entire contract like when center Travis Frederick retired earlier this year. His prorated deal left a sizable amount of dead money on both the 2020 and 2021 caps.
Outside of those circumstances, restructures are all just funny money; accounting tricks to deal with later what a team has paid for now. Before the world-altering pandemic, it was a sound strategy to pay a guy under the confines of a current years cap and defer taking the cap hit until the cap was much longer (thus lessening what percentage of the cap the contract took up).
Alternative Energy
There is of course the possibility that some or all of the new space is with a specific need in mind.
The Cowboys could be working on a Dak Prescott extension. The rules say a deal cannot be signed until after the season concludes for the franchise tagged quarterback. That doesn’t mean that a new agreement can’t be reached.
Also, Dallas number crunchers know the next several years of cap manipulations ahead of time, and with the confines of next year’s cap reduction, the team didn’t have the cap space to place the next tag on Prescott, in case an agreement isn’t made between January and the start of the new league year.
The Cowboys could also be gearing up to offer an incentive-laden contract to a free agent safety named Earl Thomas after Week 1. Vested veterans (ones with four or more years experience) contracts are guaranteed for the entire year if they sign before the season, but after the first game they can be released with no penalty.
Dallas should still be interested in Thomas because they have a clear void at his position and he’s made his desire to play for his hometown club clear in previous years. But the way Thomas exited Baltimore has to give any club pause that he could cause locker room problems the team would need to be prepared to resolve quickly without worrying about a submarine of their cap.
Bears GM Ryan Pace is getting creative in freeing up salary cap space, starting with center Cody Whitehair’s contract.
Despite not having a whole lot of salary cap space, the Bears have made some big moves in free agency and through the trade market.
Chicago has bolstered its defense with All-Pro pass rusher Robert Quinn and added some pieces to its offense with the additions of tight end Jimmy Graham and quarterback Nick Foles.
Now, general manager Ryan Pace has to get creative in freeing up salary cap space. And that’s starting with restructuring center Cody Whitehair’s contract, according to Field Yates.
The Bears have retooled the contract of G Cody Whitehair. With a Nick Foles trade on the horizon and free agency open, this likely is an effort to create cap flexibility for 2020.
Chicago has often relied upon converting base salary into signing bonuses to create cap space.
According to Over The Cap, Whitehair’s base salary in 2020 is $5.1 million, which means that with a restructure the most they could save would be $3.352 million.
Considering the Bears are still anticipated to make some moves in free agency, including on the offensive line, don’t expect the restructuring of Whitehair’s contract to be the last move Pace makes to free up cap space.
