Browns Digest

How Much Money Did The Browns Free Up After Restructuring Denzel Ward's Contract?

As the Browns work to get under the salary cap and find some added flexibility to execute their offseason plans, the team restructured Denzel Ward's contract in a move that opened up more than $10 million.

Spencer German

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Browns general manager Andrew Berry has plenty of work to do to do this offseason as he looks to build the 2024 roster.

Phase one of his offseason plan began on Wednesday morning, as Berry executed a restructure of Denzel Ward's contract, freeing up more than $11 million in salary cap space.

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The restructure featured a conversion of $14.1 million of Ward's base salary number into a signing bonus money and spreading it out over the next five years, according to Spotrac. A voided year was added to the end of the deal as well as the Browns are now slated to be on the hook for $2.8 million accredited to the cap in 2028, even though Ward's will no longer be under contract.

Because the restructure turned base salary money into bonus money, Ward gets paid that money immediately. The spreading of the figure over a five year span is just for book keeping purposes.

Last week the NFL officially revealed the 2024 salary cap, which is set at a whopping $255.4 million. That figure represented a more than $30 million jump from last year's cap – the largest single offseason cap increase in the history of the league.

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With rollover cap space included, the Browns entered NFL Combine week around $7 million over the cap to begin their offseason conquests. Ward's restructure officially moves the franchise back into the black for the first time.

It's likely more restructures are coming as Berry hopes to get further underneath the cap and create enough space to execute his offseason plans. Other portneial restructure candidates include wide receiver Amari Cooper, edge rusher Myles Garrett, running back Nick Chubb and the most expensive player on the roster this season, quarterback Deshaun Watson.

Berry, however, has now said multiple times that a restructure of Watson's $63.9 cap hit for 2024 isn't a "necessity."

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Spencer German
SPENCER GERMAN

Spencer German is a contributor to the Northeast Ohio cluster of sites, including Cavs Insider, Cleveland Baseball Insider and most notably Browns Digest. He also works as a fill-in host on Cleveland Sports Radio, 92.3 The Fan, one of the Browns radio affiliate stations in Cleveland. Despite being a Cleveland transplant, Spencer has enjoyed making Northeast Ohio home ever since he attended college locally at John Carroll University, where he graduated in 2013.

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