2 moves by Jaguars just created over $10 million in salary cap space
· Yahoo Sports
The Jacksonville Jaguars have reportedly made two salary cap-saving moves, with more likely to come.
According to Spotrac, the Jaguars converted $9.2 million of offensive lineman Patrick Mekari's base salary into a signing bonus, adding three void years to the deal.
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This move creates $7.36 million in much-needed cap space for Jacksonville.
The Jaguars also converted $4.2 million of safety Eric Murray's 2026 base salary into a signing bonus, while also adding three void years. This created $3.36 million in cap space.
The #Jaguars converted $4.2M of Eric Murray's 2026 salary into signing bonus, adding 3 void years, clearing $3.36M of space.
— Spotrac (@spotrac) March 6, 2026
Jacksonville still has work to do to get compliant next week. https://t.co/s51ZBm8NUs
In short, contract restructures take cap charges from the current year and push them to future years.
The full amount of a player's base salary counts towards the current year's cap. But by converting it to a signing bonus, the cap hit can then be prorated over the life of the deal.
Adding three void years to the contract extends the runway, creating more "fake" years to push cap charges to, thus further lowering the salary cap hit this year.
Void years are not an extension, but rather a bookkeeping measure that puts more years on the contract on paper. Mekari and Murray are each still free agents in 2028, at which point, the cap charges pushed to the void years accelerate and come due as dead cap in 2028.
The benefit of a contract restructure is that it lowers the cap hit in the present, but the downside is that the salary cap hits in future years do increase.
Mekari's new 2026 cap hit is $7.3 million, but in 2027, it is now $18.1 million. Murray's new cap hit this year is $4.23 million, and it's now $9.00 million in 2027.
The Jaguars are still $6.5 million over the 2026 salary cap.
This article originally appeared on Jaguars Wire: NFL free agency: Jaguars make 2 salary cap saving moves