Faced with the removal of $18 million in spending allotment due to sins of salary caps past (even though they didn’t do anything wrong), the Redskins are still trying to do business in free agency.
And they’ve been successful. So far.
In order to keep it going, they’ve had to begin restructuring existing contracts. Usually, that’s something that happens in the second year or later of a player’s deal. For center Will Montgomery, it happened in the second month.
Signed less than three weeks ago to a four-year $12 million deal, the Redskins reportedly have squeezed $2 million in current-year cap space by converting a portion of the contract to a guaranteed payment, according to Mark Maske of the Washington Post.
While the report doesn’t specify the specific mechanism, the Redskins undoubtedly converted a $2.75 million 2012 roster bonus into a signing bonus, spreading the amount over the four years of the deal in equal $685,000 chunks, which reduces the cap number for 2012 by $2.0625 million.
The move seems to suggest that, as of February 28, the Redskins had no idea that the league was going to strip them of significant cap dollars in 2012. Otherwise, the Redskins would have paid the $2.75 million as a signing bonus in the first place.
As of Thursday, the Redskins had more than $11 million in remaining 2012 cap room. Freeing up another $2 million suggests that they still plan to do more spending this offseason.
