The Kansas City Chiefs have made a move to help with their salary cap situation.
As first reported by Field Yates, the Chiefs and TE Travis Kelce agreed to a simple restructure of his contract, converting base salary into a signing bonus to create salary cap space. In total, the move will clear $3.455 million in cap space for Kansas City.
According to the NFLPA public salary cap report, the Chiefs had just $461,833 in salary cap space prior to the move to restructure Kelce’s contract. They were one of just two teams with less than $1 million in salary cap space available.
The Chiefs have restructured the contract of All Pro TE Travis Kelce, converting base salary into a signing bonus to clear $3.455M in cap space, per source.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) October 18, 2022
NFL reporter Josina Anderson reports the Chiefs actually made this move over the weekend, likely to help account for the signing and release of CB Dicaprio Bootle. Even with that transaction, expect the team to be hovering at somewhere near $3 million in salary cap space.
This move comes two weeks prior to the NFL’s trade deadline on Tuesday, Nov. 1. The team could certainly use some of the newly-created cap space to go out and pursue a trade. It’s possible they’d need to create even more salary cap space to pursue specific trades as well.
The team isn’t without options in terms of using these newly created funds. They could also look to sign a free agent, like WR Odell Beckham Jr., who should soon be ready to play after his knee injury suffered in the Super Bowl. They could also hold onto the cash knowing that they’ll have to account for other roster moves throughout the season.
