The Falcons were willing to throw long-time starter Matt Ryan overboard for Deshaun Watson. Ryan agreed to delay a roster bonus to accommodate what would have been both a trade for Watson and a trade of Ryan.
Although they didn’t land Watson, could they still trade Ryan?
It’s possible that Ryan, in exchange for delaying the due date of his $7.5 million payment by four days, asked to be traded no matter the outcome of the Watson sweepstakes. If that’s going to happen, it needs to happen by 4:00 p.m. ET on Monday.
After that, the roster bonus vests. The cap hit for trading Ryan would spike from $40.525 million to $48.025 million.
If he isn’t traded, Ryan may want a financial apology. A restructuring that would have dropped his all-time-record $48.66 million cap number by $12 million, reported as a done deal, was never done. If the restructuring ends up back on the table, Ryan may now want something a little more for his trouble, especially as the market continues to spike in the years after he signed a deal with a new-money value of $30 million per year.