Ravens Receive Salary Cap Relief, Heap Restructures Contract

Posted by Stephen Rhodes on February 14th, 2008 filed in Main

                                    

The Baltimore Ravens received a bit of good news that affects their bottom line as Aaron Wilson of the Carroll County Times reports that tight end Todd Heap has restructured his current contract, creating additional cap space for the team to be able to sign linebacker Terrell Suggs should they make him their franchise player.

With the restructuring, the Ravens will be able to franchise Suggs at a cost of $8.065 million next season if a long-term deal isn’t reached by the February 21 league deadline.  The transaction frees up about $1.7025 million in cap space, but Heap doesn’t personally suffer from it; under the current NFL collective bargaining agreement, players’ base salaries can be turned over into a signing bonus - Heap would receive $2.27 million in the form of a bonus.

Heap was scheduled to make $3 million this year, but with the restructuring, his salary for 2008 is now $730,000; his salary cap number for this year is reduced from $5.2 million to $3.49 million.  The $2.27 million “bonus” would be prorated over the balance of his contract, which runs through the 2011 season.