As expected, Jonathan Ogden’s contract has been restructured. Based on NFLPA records, it appears that Ogden’s contract has been restructured creating $5M in additional Cap space for the team. This restructure helps the team create a good portion of the Cap space necessary to accommodate the Franchise Tag for Terrell Suggs.
Ogden was scheduled to have a 2008 Cap number of $11.518M with a base salary of $7.515M. The NFLPA’s website now indicates that Ogden’s base salary has been reduced by $5M to $2.515M.
This is likely not your normal “simple†restructure because it is highly unlikely that Ogden’s salary was turned into bonus money. To the contrary, it is likely that this restructure is similar to how the Ravens handled Ogden last year, when the team exercised a clause in Ogden’s contract that allowed them to turn base salary into bonuses that are tied to Ogden’s attendance at OTAs and Training Camp.
By doing so again this year, the Ravens will receive immediate Cap relief as Ogden contemplates retirement. In essence, Ogden has taken a paycut – at least for the time being – so the entire $5M is deducted from the Cap. If he does not retire, then he will earn the money back by attending OTAs and Training Camp.
The assumption here is that Ogden is going to retire. If, however, he decided to return, the team would most likely have to restructure some more contracts at a later time to offset the return of the $5M back onto the Cap.
Assuming Ogden does retire, it likely signals that the team is planning on have him file his retirement papers after June 1, so that the team would not have to restructure any additional contracts on account of Ogden. If his retirement is processed prior to June 1, the team would need to create additional Cap space (approx. $2.8M) to accommodate the acceleration of his remaining unaccounted-for bonus shares. But assuming that this is handled as a post-June 1 matter, then the team will instead receive additional Cap space of $2.515M at that time (but would cost the team $5.326M in dead money against the 2009 Cap).
The beauty of this maneuver is that it essentially allows the team to treat Ogden like a June 1 release/retirement, but allows them to get most of the June 1 Cap relief immediately. This, of course, is very helpful in getting Terrell Suggs franchised, since normally the Cap relief from a June 1 release is not realized until June 1.
With this move and the prior restructure of Todd Heap, the team will likely have close to enough Cap space to tender their Restricted Free Agents and Exclusive Rights Free Agents and use the franchise tag on Terrell Suggs. The team is likely to get some credits for unrealized Incentives carried over from last season which will likely make up the additional Cap space necessary to be under the Cap by February 29th. That will likely do for now, but the team will need more Cap space in the future to sign/re-sign a couple of Free Agents and to sign their draft picks.
If the team does still need additional Cap space, the other likely candidates for restructures are Chris McAlister ($4.847M), Jarrett Johnson ($1.046M) and Kelly Gregg ($1.816M). Because of their ages, and likely short remaining tenures with the team, guys like Steve McNair, Samari Rolle, Trevor Pryce and Derrick Mason are not good candidates for restructures.
