The new league year begins on March 17 which means teams are trimming rosters and restructuring contracts in advance of free agency. The Philadelphia Eagles started that process by cutting two seldom-used veterans.
The Eagles also are shopping a few key veterans, namely Zach Ertz and (maybe) Brandon Brooks. General manager Howie Roseman has already gotten Jason Kelce, Brandon Graham, Lane Johnson, and Darius Slay to move some money around on their deals. On Wednesday, it was reported that starting left guard Isaac Seumalo had restructured his contract. He’ll drop his base salary to the veteran minimum ($990,000) in 2021 while clearing $2.4 million in cap space, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
Roseman has come under fire in recent months for mismanaging the salary cap in Philly. The franchise had been $49 million over the cap a month ago, but that number has dwindled to $26.8 million thanks to all the cap-friendly restructured contracts. Roseman remains optimistic and confident in his abilities to fix it.
“I’m not worried about my job. That’s not anything that really concerns me. That’s out of my hands,” Roseman told reporters on Jan. 4. “I’m worried about doing what’s the best and right thing for this team to get back. Like I said, when we talked about it, I think that some of the things that we did were more short-term oriented.”
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Eagles Awarded 2 Compensatory Draft Picks
The NFL announced that the Eagles will receive two additional picks in April’s draft due to the league’s complicated “compensatory picks” system. Teams are awarded picks between Rounds 3 and 7 for players who left to sign elsewhere using specific criteria: average salary, snap count, postseason awards.
The Eagles were given two sixth-round picks this year as compensation for losing Jordan Howard, Kamu Grugier-Hill, and Ronald Darby in free agency. The franchise now has 10 total draft picks in 2021, including the sixth overall pick. Here’s the breakdown of those 10 draft-day selections: one first-rounder, one second-rounder, two third-rounders, two fifth-rounders, three sixth-rounders, one seventh-rounder.
NFL Confirms Salary Cap Limit for 2021
The league took a loss this year in terms of gross revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so obviously, that lost income was going to affect the total salary cap threshold. Estimates had the total number somewhere around $180 million last month. On Wednesday, the NFL announced the final cap would be $182.5 million for 2021. That’s down roughly $16 million from 2020.
“Obviously, since we found out around April, kind of the floor for the cap, we’ve been planning on that,” Roseman said on Jan. 4. “None of this is a surprise. We’ve had a lot of time to go through it and we’ll be prepared for whatever it is.”
The Eagles will be hovering right around $194 million in “active cap spending” in 2021, per OverTheCap, and $26.8 million over the new salary cap number. They are still paying former quarterback Carson Wentz $33.8 million after trading him away to the Indianapolis Colts, too.
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Eagles Awarded 2 Draft Picks, Restructure Another Contract