NEWSLETTER
There was a period in which we viewed the Bears as cap-strapped because they didn’t have gobs of money to spend and had some holes to plug via free agency. But we should be thankful that at no point this offseason was Chicago so strapped for spending money it had to re-structure a veteran’s contract in order to squeeze in a rookie contract.
That’s what the Vikings – a team firmly entrenched in salary-cap hell – had to do today:
The Vikings confirmed linebacker Eric Kendricks restructured his contract to make room for first-round pick Garrett Bradbury.
— Ben Goessling (@GoesslingStrib) May 14, 2019
A source said the #Vikings took $2.1 million of Eric Kendricks $4.15 million base salary this season and converted it to a signing bonus. They can spread that out over four years, so it saved them $1.575 on the cap for this year.
— Chris Tomasson (@christomasson) May 14, 2019
YIKES!
The Vikings had to take some of linebacker Eric Kendricks’ base salary and convert it into a signing bonus to save $1.575 million in cap space, which was used to sign first-round center Garrett Bradbury. That kind gesture by Kendricks allowed Minnesota to have enough wiggle room to sign Bradbury to a four-year deal worth about $12.9 million, which includes a cap hit of $2.3 million in 2019.
So in case you were curious about what salary-cap hell looked like, that’s probably it. Because there’s nothing like not having enough cap space to sign an interior offensive lineman selected with the 18th overall pick.
Even after restructuring Kendricks’ deal, the Vikings have some serious cap-related problems. OverTheCap.com has the Vikings with just $2,897,324 remaining in available cap space, while Spotrac.com’s estimates the team has only $2,534,181 left to spend. No matter which way you slice it, that’s not much wiggle room for a team expected to compete for a playoff spot that might need a late addition at some point before the season begins in order to round out the roster. Tough break, gang.
