Phillips Contract Restructured to Fit Ertz Salary Under Salary Cap

The Cardinals were expecting a lot when they signed defensive tackle Jordan Phillips to a three-year contract worth $30 million in March, 2020.

To say the least, they haven’t gotten it thus far. 

Phillips played only nine games last season and Sunday’s 21 snaps against Cleveland were his first action of 2021 after opening the season on reserve/injured with a back injury. Heading to this week’s game against Houston, Phillips has played 10 of a possible 22 games and had already pocketed $13.3 million through six weeks this season.

He now has even more cash in the bank after the team restructured his deal to be able to fit the remaining salary of tight end Zach Ertz ($5.67 million) under the salary cap. The restructure creates over $5.2 million of cap space for the Cardinals, according to Spotrac and Over the Cap. 

Prior to the move, the team was estimated to have been about $2-3 million over the cap.

For Phillips, the Cardinals converted $6.507 million of salary remaining this season to a signing bonus and added two additional voidable years in order to prorate his signing bonuses over more years. There was already one voidable year for 2023 in his original contract.

After the restructure, Phillips has now been paid over $19 million for those 10 games.

In 2022, Phillips’ base salary is $10 million, the same total as this year of which $8.5 million was guaranteed. However, there are no guarantees next year.

Still, the presence of those three voidable years could be problematical if the Cardinals wanted to move on from Phillips after this season. In his original contract, there would have been $4 million in remaining signing bonus proration.

Now, there will be $9.2 million of potential dead money, which would all be charged against the cap if Phillips were to be released on or before June 1, 2022. If he is on the roster at the start of the league year in March, the cap charge will be $13.3 million.

Waiting until after June 1 would mean he would still count that $13.3 million until he was no longer on the roster. If that happens, his dead money would be $3.3 million in 2022 and $5.9 million in 2023.

Surely, it will be up to Phillips to prove in the final 11 games he is worth the investment.