While one veteran Ravens guard – Kelechi Osemele – is set to officially leave the team to sign with the Raiders later today, the team’s other starting guard has reworked his contract to create extra cap room. According to Field Yates of ESPN.com (via Twitter), Marshal Yanda has restructured his deal, opening up nearly $4MM in cap space.
Yanda’s contract, which he signed in October, was an ideal candidate for restructuring, since his 2016 salary was already fully guaranteed — converting a chunk of it to a signing bonus allows the veteran guard to get that money up front, and spreads it over the next four years for cap purposes, without adding any additional guaranteed money to the Ravens’ tab.
According to Yates, Yanda converted about $5.3MM of his $6.186MM base salary into a signing bonus, which should reduce his cap hit to just above $4MM for 2016. He had originally been on track to have a cap number of nearly $8MM. The move will also increase his cap hits in future seasons by about $1.325MM.
The extra cap flexibility should help the Ravens conduct their offseason business — it could be put toward signing tight end Ben Watson, who reportedly reached a contract agreement with Baltimore on Tuesday.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.