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Fletcher Cox and the Philadelphia Eagles agreed to a contract restructure that frees up over $5.7 million in cap space, according to a report from ESPN.
The Eagles recently converted $7.165M of DT Fletcher Cox’s salary into a bonus, creating about $5.732M in 2020 cap space.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) October 21, 2020
Extra room for Philly now, but also more money to rollover into 2021 when the league could be in a tighter cap year.
It remains to be seen why the Eagles were interested in making this maneuver right now. Over The Cap had them with the ninth most in the league around $16.9 million prior to the Cox restructure.
One might theorize the Eagles are gearing up to make an addition ahead of the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday, November 3. There’s a report out there that the Eagles are going to be buyers, after all. But with the Eagles already having ample cap space to work with, I’m not so sure that’s what this clearance is about.
It’s important to note that Cox did NOT take a pay cut. The term “restructure” is sometimes misunderstood in this regard. Cox isn’t earning any less money; he’s just receiving it differently.
The Eagles merely took some of Cox’s base salary and converted it into a signing bonus. The upside to doing this is that it frees up cap space in the short-term. The downside is that it increases cap numbers in future seasons.
With the Eagles currently projected to be about $68.9 million (!) OVER the threshold in 2021, Howie Roseman is going to be counting on rolling over a good chunk of 2020 cap space for next year.