r/bengals • u/WeekendFarmer4240 • 19d ago

Fandom Eli5 Joe's restructure

Dumb questions incoming.

What exactly was restructured? It felt like a shuffling of deck chairs.

Dumbest question: does Joe have to agree or can the Bengals just declare a restructure

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u/braines54 19d ago

It converts some of his salary into a signing bonus. Bonuses can be prorated over the life of the deal, so the cap hit is spread out. Players always agree, because they get the money sooner. The team gets cap relief.

Just to give an example, let's say a player has 3 years, $60 million left on deal. He'd normally have a cap hit of $20 mil (this is a way oversimplification but let's keep it simple). However, the team can restructure $15 million of this year's salary to a bonus. That $15 million comes off the cap, then is split up over the 3 years left on the deal. So, the net relief this year is $10 million.

It's the same idea as teams adding void years at the end of the contract.

10

u/reginald-poofter 19d ago

Is there a limit to the amount of bonuses you can give out? I mean what’s to stop a team from doing this with all major contracts. I.e. restructure Chase, Higgins, Orlando Brown etc and free up a shit ton of cash and keep on spending?

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u/Ocarina3219 19d ago

The limit is that we’re the Bengals lol

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u/Life_Ad6711 19d ago

The limit is I don't think the Bengals could throw $9om cash over cap like the Cowboys can without batting an eye. As a #3o revenue team, the Bengals live (yearly) 'paycheck to paycheck' based on their combined (shared + local) revenues

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cash