By John Sigler | Saintswire
The NFL is continuing to adjust to the realities of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, with the latest change being a new rule that delays some salary cap accounting for players who are opting out of the 2020 season. Unfortunately for the New Orleans Saints, this doesn’t offer them much breathing-room.
Base salaries for those opt-outs are pushed ahead to the 2021 bookkeeping, and the NFL has decided that prorated signing bonus payments will follow them. But there’s just one snag: neither of the Saints players who have opted out of 2020 had signing bonuses written into their contracts to begin with.
Backup tight ends Cole Wick ($750,000 cap hit for 2020) and Jason Vander Laan ($675,000) each opted out, taking their one-year contracts off the books until 2021. Vander Laan’s contract didn’t qualify as a top-51 salary cap hit anyway, while Wick’s absence promoted a lesser-valued deal into its spot (2019 draft pick Saquan Hampton, who counts for $723,988). ...
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