Not many, if anyone, puts together a more complicated, team-friendly contract than Howie Roseman does for the Eagles.
The latest contract handed to Jason Kelce is a perfect example.
The details of Kelce's one-year, $14 million contract are in, and as expected, it is filled with fake money and voidable years that allow the Eagles to minimize his cap hit now to give the team more room to spend.
Here is a breakdown of the contract:
The Length: Kelce's one-year, $14 million deal is technically a five-year, $45 million contract that runs through 2026. The majority of that money comes in the form of a $30 million base salary in 2024, money that Kelce will almost certainly never see and the Eagles will never pay out. It isn't clear why that huge base salary is in the deal in 2024, but by stretching out the deal through 2026, it allows the Eagles to lower Kelce's cap hit in 2022. The contract has two voidable years at the end (2025 and 2026). It is somewhat noteworthy that the Eagles have Kelce under contract for the 2023 season. Kelce very well could retire at the end of 2022, but if he does want to play again, the contract means the Eagles would have his rights for the 2023 season.
The Signing Bonus: Kelce got a $10.1 million signing bonus, a very nice check for from Jeffrey Lurie for coming back and playing another season. Putting the majority of the new money in a signing bonus allowed the Eagles to stretch it out over multiple seasons.
The Money: Kelce has a base salary of $1.12 million in 2022, in addition to $3 million in a roster bonus. The base salary, roster bonus and signing bonus come out to around $14 million, which is why the new contract is considered (and reported) as a one-year, $14 million deal.
The Cap Hit: The most important detail in the contract is the cap hit for 2022. Kelce's old deal was set to have a cap hit of around $6.5 million in 2022. The new contract has that going up slightly, with a cap hit of just over $8 million. So the Eagles lost around $1.5 million in salary cap space by bringing back Kelce. Obviously, that is cap space well spent.
Eagles Cap Space: The Eagles have made four moves in free agency. They signed Haason Reddick, Greg Ward and Andre Chachere, in addition to tendering Nate Herbig. According to the NFLPA's website, which is updated daily, the Eagles have around $14 million in salary cap space left. That does not seem to include Reddick's contract, but that will likely lower the $14 million left another $3 or 4 million. The Eagles also have to allocate around $8 million for the their three first-round draft picks.
The bottom line is that, as Kelce's contract shows, the salary cap is very easily manipulated. The Eagles can open up space quickly if they want by re-doing the deals of Javon Hargrave and Darius Slay, both of whom have big base salaries that can easily be used to open up space.
Still, the Eagles are pretty tight up against the cap. Any move of significance they make from here on out will require some serious cap maneuvering, and taking cap space from future seasons, to get done.
You can reach Eliot Shorr-Parks on Twitter at @EliotShorrParks or email him at esp@94wip.com
