After back-to-back offseasons of being able to spend money on big-name free agents, the Atlanta Falcons are going to be a little more strapped for cash this offseason, especially with Kirk Cousins on the books for a big cap hit no matter what his future entails with the Falcons.
There are a few moves the Falcons could make this offseason to free up some cap space, but these moves wouldn’t be easy decisions. Moving on from both Grady Jarrett and David Onyemata may be the best business decision this offseason, The Morning Shift explained why.
“I think the way they drafted last year tells me that both David Onyemata and Grady Jarrett, there were questions about them moving into next season," Mike Johnson said. "I think there should be those are big big cap hits.”
Now moving on from Onyemata wouldn’t be a tough pill to swallow for anybody; he's only played in Atlanta for two seasons and his play has been solid but not overwhelmingly great with seven sacks and 14 tackles for loss.
The same can not be said for Jarrett, who was drafted by the Falcons and quickly became one of the faces and leaders of the franchise. Even though his play has taken a bit of a decline, he still has played good football. Johnson believes that emotions shouldn’t get in the way of a good business decision.
“I don’t think anybody for this franchise can be considered untouchable unless they’re playing at some kind of extremely high level," Johnson said. "And I hate to say that because I got a lot of good feelings in past history over the way Grady Jarrett plays. But I don’t think we can just stop at David Onyemata can we? I mean I don’t think that’s where we draw the line.”
Beau Morgan added to Mike’s point by talking about how good organizations don’t make decisions based on emotion.
“You can’t make fan-friendly moves based on emotions and think that you’re gonna be a winning organization,” Morgan said. “If you think Grady Jarrett is still playing to a high level enough to have him here for next season and beyond then the move is to restructure and extend.”
Restructuring and extending Jarrett would benefit the Falcons because the team could then lower his current base salary of $15 million and also lower his current cap hit of $20.3 million as well. That would give the Falcons the financial flexibility they’re looking for.
Beau finisheds his thought by saying the Falcons are going to have to “cut one and restructure the other” when talking about Jarrett and Onyemata.
The Falcons would incur an $8.8 million dead-cap hit, but releasing Onyemata would save the same amount in total cap dollars, and releasing Jarrett would save $16 million on the cap and result in just $4.1 million in dead-cap hit. So it makes a lot of sense for the Falcons to move on from both from a financial standpoint.
Time will ultimately tell what the future is for Jarrett and Onyemata when it comes to their time with the Falcons. But with the draft picks the Falcons made last season, and depending on what they do in April’s draft, don’t be surprised if this is the season where the Falcons fully dive into their youth movement across the defensive line and move on from both of their veteran defensive tackles.