Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman is a wizard at manipulating the salary cap. He likes to convert base salaries into signing bonuses to free up extra money.
Right tackle Lane Johnson and kicker Jake Elliott were the latest to take a knife to their annual deals as the Eagles shaved off roughly $6.9 million, per ESPN’s Field Yates. Philadelphia was staring down the barrel at just $1.22 million in team cap space (via OverTheCap); Johnson was on the books for $7 million in base salary in 2022 while Elliott was due $3.75 million.
In a near annual rite of passage, the Eagles have restructured the contract of OT Lane Johnson, per source.
Philly converted $5.88M of Johnson’s base salary and $2.715M of K Jake Elliot’s base salary into signing bonuses, creating about $6.9M in 2022 cap space.
This begs the question, could another move be coming? Probably not. The Eagles are looking to sign new starting safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson to a contract extension. He’s predicted to receive as much as $9 million per year. Gardner-Johnson didn’t seem worried about something getting done when asked about it last week.
“Me and Howie talked. We know where we stand,” Gardner-Johnson said, “I’m just going to go out there and play football, have fun, and everything will take care of itself.”
Eagles-Lions Game Sells Out, Standing Room
There won’t be an empty seat in the house at Ford Field on Sunday when the Detroit Lions host the Eagles in the regular-season opener. The game is sold out, with standing-room tickets now on sale. This is the first time the Lions have offered standing-room tickets in a non-Thanksgiving game since 2017.
There are a couple of things likely at play here: one, Eagles supporters gobbled up tickets and are heading to Detroit en masse as they travel better than arguably any fan base in the NFL.
Two, excitement for the Lions is at an all-time high after their epic debut on HBO’s Hard Knocks turned them into “America’s Team.” Either way, Detroit football is back with a vengeance.
You can tell this season means a lot to Dan Campbell. (via @NFLFilms)
#HardKnocks with the @Lions now available on @HBOMax
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni admitted to watching everything and trying to get any competitive advantage he can.
“The parity in this league is so tight and so small, and the margin of error is so small,” Sirianni told reporters. “Of course, you try to take anything you can from anything. We’ll watch Coach [Dan] Campbell’s press conferences. We’ll watch Jared Goff press conferences, and sure we’ll watch Hard Knocks to figure out if we can get something out of it. No stone will be left unturned.”
Eagles Offensive Line Releases Hype Video
The official Eagles hype video for Week 1 has yet to be released. It’s coming to a social media channel near you real soon. In the meantime, the team sent out a motivational message from their offensive line which showed Lane Johnson, Isaac Seumalo, Jason Kelce, Landon Dickerson, and Jordan Mailata sitting around a campfire and playing horseshoes.
“The only people that really understand what you go through is the people you play next to,” Johnson said in the video. “It’s almost like one heartbeat, everybody’s on the same levels, and I think it takes a special person to do that.”
One heartbeat. O-Line pride. 😤 @JasonKelce @jordan_mailata @Landon_2012 @jackdriscoll71 #FlyEaglesFly
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Eagles Create Extra Cap Space After 2 Starters Restructure Contracts