The Arizona Cardinals entered the offseason with a decent amount of salary cap space to use in free agency. They have signed eight players and much of that cap space is gone.
However, there are a couple of ways for them to add space without having to cut anyone of note.
They can restructure the contracts of cornerback Patrick Peterson and outside linebacker Chandler Jones.
Jones is scheduled to make $16.5 million in 2019 and has a cap hit of $19.5 million. They could convert $9 million of that salary into a bonus and that would drop his cap number in 2019 by $6 million, but would add $3 million to his cap number in 2020 and 2021.
If they converted $6 million of his salary into a bonus, it would save the Cardinals $4 million cap space this year but add $2 million to Jones’ cap number the next two seasons.
They could do the same thing with Patrick Peterson.
Peterson will make $11 million in salary in 2019. With a contract that runs through 2020, every $2 million the team converts into a bonus, they save $1 million in cap space this year, adding $1 million to next year.
The Cardinals currently have more than $100 million in cap space in 2020.
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