Earlier this week, we found out the Falcons had restructured the contracts of Jake Mathews and Matt Ryan, likely to make room for the signings of Dante Fowler Jr. and Todd Gurley. Today, we discovered just how much Atlanta saved by converting a portion of their salary into a signing bonus.
Jake Matthews’s base salary is now just $3.55 million with a signing bonus of just over $7 million, according to Over The Cap. His projected cap hit coming into the offseason was at $16 million, so the team will save over $5 million from this restructure.
Matt Ryan’s base salary has been reduced to $1.05 million for 2020 with a signing bonus of over $17 million. Like Matthews, the move will save the team around $5 million this season.
The Falcons also save some money from their one-year extension of defensive end Allen Bailey. Some of his 2020 salary was converted into a signing bonus spread out over this season and next. All of this leaves the Falcons with around $14 million in cap space before the signings of Fowler and Gurley. Atlanta could frontload the contract of Fowler, given there is expected to be a significant cap increase in 2021, but there still won’t be much room for any more splashes. Hopefully, the Falcons can find at least one more worthwhile body to add to their defense at a reasonable price before April’s draft. I went through a list of potential cheap options yesterday.Â
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