Eagles
Fletcher Cox Restructures Deal
Penn State Great Valley MBA, Penn State Berks Undergrad, Eagle Scout and Vigil Honor, IT Service Manager. I joined Sports Talk Philly in 2017 and root for all the Philly teams (as well as their minor league counter parts).
All posts by Paul BowmanPublished21 Oct 2020
By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor 
The Eagles have a game on Thursday night, but in Philadelphia the roster building never stops.
ESPN’s Field Yates reported Wednesday afternoon that the Eagles had restructured Fletcher Cox’s deal in order to create some cap space.
The Eagles recently converted $7.165M of DT Fletcher Cox’s salary into a bonus, creating about $5.732M in 2020 cap space.
Extra room for Philly now, but also more money to rollover into 2021 when the league could be in a tighter cap year.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) October 21, 2020
As Yates reports, the move will take $7.165 million to signing bonus that will be spread out over the remaining four years on his deal.
It does create $5.7 million in space in 2020, but will ultimately create around $3.5 million is space for the 2021 season.
The move was likely complete with 2021 in mind as the team was not short on cap space for this season as they look to carry over for their cap-restricted season in 2021, when they project to be, by some estimates, $60 million over the cap due to their kick-the-can method finally coming to a head coinciding with a pandemic that will likely lower the cap for the first time in decades.
The move likely helps keep Cox with the Eagles as cutting him post June 1 in 2021 was the Eagles biggest method of cap savings ($16 million), but this deal would lower those saving by about $4 million.
Other top cost savings for the Eagles would include the trade/release of Derek Barnett ($10 million), post June 1st cuts or trades of Brandon Graham and Alshon Jeffery ($13 million each) and a post June 1 release or trade of Malik Jackson ($10 million). Note that each team can only designate two players as post June 1 cuts ahead of that deadline.
Cox has been a mainstay on the Eagles defensive line since he was drafted with the 12th overall pick in 2012.
This season, Cox has registered 1.5 sacks, 12 tackles and a pass deflection in addition to his numerous pressures (14% pass-rush win rate). He will be looking to build on those numbers Thursday night against the Giants.
