The Jacksonville Jaguars restructured the contracts of three players to free up $26.14 million in cap space according to ESPN’s Field Yates.
The Jaguars converted a total of $32.657M of base salary for WR Christian Kirk, WR Zay Jones and G Brandon Scherff into signing bonuses, creating a total of $26.14M in 2023 cap space, per source.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) February 28, 2023
In order to reach those reported cap savings, the Jaguars must have added void years to each players contract to max out the proration on the restructure bonuses to five years.
Christian Kirk has $14.42 million of his salary converted to a signing bonus, dropping his 2023 salary cap charge from $23 million to $11.464 million, a savings of $11.536 million. Kirk’s salary cap numbers will increase in 2024 and 2025 by $2.884 million and deferring $5.768 million to the void years of the contract. If Kirk is not extended in 2026 that will be the remaining dead money associated with the contract.
Brandon Scherff had $12.335 million of his salary converted to a bonus with three void years added to the contract. His cap number dropped from $20 to $10.132 million, a savings of $9.868 million. His cap number next year will increase by $2.467 million to nearly $24 million and if not extended would leave the Jaguars with $7.4 million in dead money in 2025.
Zay Jones had $5.92 million of his salary converted to a bonus and added three additional void years to the contract, opening up $4.736 million in cap room. His cap number next year increases by $1.184 million with $3.552 million in potential dead money sitting in 2025.
The moves now make the Jaguars cap compliant for the 2023 NFL season moving them to about $13 million under the salary cap, not including whatever savings were realized with the Roy Robertson-Harris extension. The Jaguars still have a lot of potential flexibility with more salary conversions or releases of players.