The Eagles continued to clear out cap space in advance of the start of the new league year by restructuring the contract of cornerback Darius Slay.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported that the Eagles cleared $9.14 million in cap space by restructuring Slay’s deal.
Slay had a 2021 cap figure of $15.75 million, so it looks like the Eagles reduced that figure to $6.61 million.
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Including prior moves with Alshon Jeffery, DeSean Jackson and Malik Jackson, the Eagles have now saved about $30.5 million under their projected adjusted salary cap of about $208 million, which is the $185 million league-wide cap plus about $22 million in carryover from 2020.
OverTheCap had the Eagles at about $43 million over the cap before the Slay restructure, so they still have some work to do.
All NFL teams must be cap compliant by March 17.
Although details weren’t immediately available, the Eagles generally create cap space by converting base salary into a bonus, which lowers the cap hit in the upcoming year by pro-rating the bonus over a period of years whereas base salary counts against the cap in the year it’s paid.
NFL
Although that adds money to their cap in future years over the life of the restructured contracts, the Eagles are much better equipped to handle the increased hits in those future years.
The Eagles have reportedly started working on a contract restructure for Brandon Graham, which if both sides agree on the deal will reduce Graham’s current cap figure of $17.93 million to an as-yet undetermined figure.
They reduced $10.9 million from next year’s cap by reworking Jeffery’s contract in preparation of releasing him with a post-June 1 designation and saved $8 million by doing the same thing with Malik Jackson’s contract.
Dave Zangaro explained those complicated cap-saving tricks here.
The Eagles acquired Slay from the Lions last March in exchange for 3rd- and 5th-round picks in last year’s draft and signed him to a three-year, $50.5 million contract.
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