When it rains, it pours. With the Eagles hosting their ‘end of season’ pressers, a report has come out from NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo citing that the team have already started working on bringing down their dreaded $71M salary cap debt for the upcoming offseason.
Garafolo states that the Eagles have restructured the deals of Alshon Jeffery and Malik Jackson in preparation to move on from both players by the end of the offseason.
The decision to move on from Alshon doesn’t come as a surprise. The team tried to trade him on multiple occasions prior to the deadline and he hardly has a glowing recent history neither on or off the field. Whether it’s an injury that somehow wasn’t enough to put him on IR and take up a valuable roster space for half a season, amassing 115 yards in 2020 on just 6 receptions or the ‘Alshonymous sources’ saga, nothing about the last two years screams ‘Alshon Jeffery is worth an $18M cap hit.
As for Malik Jackson, his restructure is a little more surprising. The DT signed a three-year deal worth $30M last offseason and missed his entire first season in Philadelphia due to a season-ending injury suffered in week one.
He returned in explosive fashion, amassing 2.5 sacks and 28 tackles, providing a defensive spark when Javon Hargrave struggled to. That’s the problem though.
The Eagles made Javon Hargrave the highest-paid DT in the NFL this past offseason, creating the world’s most expensive pass-rushing log-jam. Hargrave picked up his pace towards the end of the year as he settled into a new scheme, leaving Jackson and his $13M cap hit expendable.
Whether the Eagles will be cutting or trading these players is anyone’s guess, but a firm intent that neither are in their long-term plans hardly drives up the price. Expect this to be the first of many groups of moves that aim to chop away at the cap deficit the team has to overcome this offseason.
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