LA Rams RB Todd Gurley reportedly meeting with team to decide future

Restructure means many things

While the current contract for Gurley has a huge cap hit for the team “as is”, outright cutting Gurley would trigger all bonuses already paid out, hitting the team for an additional $8.4 million against the salary cap this season.  Should the team trade Gurley, the team would still be on the hook for $12.4 million, but would save nearly $4.7 million against the cap.

Restructuring Gurley’s contract takes all the money’s due to Gurley this year, and reclassifies them as “signing bonus”. That allows those monies to be pushed out over the life of the contract.  Let’s examine how that works. Per OverTheCap, Gurley is due a base salary of $5,500,000, a roster bonus of $7,550,000, and a prorated signing bonus of $4,200,00.  That translates to the $17.25 million cap hit.

But if the Rams restructures the contract, the team and player push $13.05 million into a four year signing bonus to be spread over the next four years.  Translated, that means Gurley’s new salary is the prorated signing bonus of $4,200,000 plus 25 percent of the new $13.05 million or just $3,262,500. That saves the team $9,787,500. in salary cap space this season.

That’s one salary. The team has multiple players in need of restructure.  So why would a player do so?  Restructuring pushes unguaranteed salaries into guaranteed bonuses. It ensures the player will be paid today’s dollars.  So it’s a win-win of sorts.  But as many have pointed out in comments, it kicks the salary can down the road for the Rams.