Atlanta Falcons with a myriad of moves including re-signs and restructures

Atlanta Falcons with a myriad of moves including re-signs and restructures

The Atlanta Falcons have restructured the contract of starting left tackle Jake Matthews, but that wasn’t the only move made this week.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s D. Orlando Ledbetter reported Thursday evening that the Falcons had come to an agreement with Matthews to convert his $13 million base salary in 2021 to a signing bonus, which can be spread over the final three years of his contract. With the move, his salary-cap number with only be $11.6 million this season, compared to the original $20.8 million.

As a result, the Falcons are now just $5.6 million over the cap and more moves are expected to occur between now and Wednesday at 4 p.m. when the Atlanta Falcons must be under the $182.5 million max set by the league for the 2021 season.

In addition to the Matthews restructure, the Falcons re-signed Younghoe Koo, DL Jacob Tuioti-Mariner and WR Christian Blake on Thursday.

Atlanta Falcons fans can expect to see multiple contract restructures as the franchise tries to create space for this season

At the time of this writing, Matthews is the only contract restructure but he won’t be the last.

Ledbetter also pointed out that two names to keep your eyes on in terms of restructures are DT Grady Jarrett and LB Deion Jones. Both are still young players who have several years left on their deal and making restructures on both defensive stars would create about $11 million in savings for this year. 

The major ‘re-sign’ left for the Falcons is starting center Alex Mack, but it doesn’t seem likely to us that the Falcons will have enough to afford him unless he’s willing to take a deal with more backend benefits. Still, it’s something to keep your eye on as we progress towards free-agency.