Matt Ryan, Jake Matthews, and Allen Bailey’s contract restructure details with Falcons

As we reported over the weekend, the Falcons made some necessary moves with Allen Bailey, Matt Ryan and Jake Matthews to help free up some cap space for this season. At the time, we didn’t have any details on how much space was freed up. We now have some answers.

Many of us were expecting Bailey to be a cap casualty, but the team went the opposite route. They instead gave him a one year contract extension that will keep him in Atlanta through 2021.

Bailey’s current deal would have cost the team just under $6M on the 2020 cap. This extension will reduce that number slightly, with a savings of around $1M on the cap being likely. They’re counting on Bailey, who has had a rock solid career but is coming off a shaky part-time year in 2019, bouncing back and delivering value as a starting base end. His track record suggests that’ll happen.

As for Matt Ryan, according to OverTheCap.com, it looks like his restructure was done for the maximum allowed. His 2020 salary has been reduced to just $1.05M from $8M. That means that $7M was converted to a bonus and is being spread out against the rest of the years of his deal. His cap hit is being reduced from $24.175M to $19M for a cap savings of around $5M.

Jake Matthews salary of $10.55M has been reduced to $3.55M for 2020. That reduction will change his 2020 cap hit from $16M to $10.7M for a savings of a little over $5M.

For those wondering, OverTheCap is showing the team with roughly $13M in free cap space (without factoring in the $10M they get in June from cutting Desmond Trufant). This cap space is probably to fit in the Dante Fowler and Todd Gurley signings, which will probably eat up most of the free space the team currently has. Don’t expect the team to sign any other big names at this point.

Your thoughts on these restructured deals?