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Wylie agreed to a $3.75 million pay cut in 2025. In return the Commanders guaranteed $3.5 million of salary for the year
It was reported a week ago that Commanders OT Andrew Wylie had agreed to a contract restructure.
While there’s no convention among NFL observers about the language to be used, I generally use the term “restructure” to mean a ‘push button’ adjustment to a player’s contract in which some portion of his base salary is converted to signing bonus. In these instances, the player’s agreement is not required since, from the player’s standpoint, it simply converts game checks into a more immediate ‘up front’ cash payment that is, in effect, fully guaranteed.
The advantage for the team is that cap dollars — up to 80% of the amount of salary converted to bonus — can be deferred to later years. While to some fans this sounds like some form of salary cap cheating or gaming of the system, it is actually part of the NFL salary cap system that is codified in NFL contracts and/or the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Literally every NFL team uses this type of restructuring from time to time as a cap management tool.
I will stress again that there is no convention about the use of these two terms, but it has always been my habit to use the word “renegotiate” to describe a situation where a player agrees to a pay cut.
This is far different from the “restructure” I described above. In the push-button restructure, the player is in no way disadvantaged, and, in fact, gets his money sooner and usually with greater certainty than he would without the restructure. It is normally seen to actually be a benefit to the player involved.
A renegotiation is quite different. Here, the player agrees to actually be paid less money (and it can’t happen without his agreement). Without looking it up, the last Washington player that I remember taking a pay cut via a renegotiated contract was DeAngelo Hall in 2017, though it may have happened since then and slipped my mind.
The motivation for a player to take a pay cut could be subtle or complex I guess, but generally speaking, it simply results from the team offering him a choice: take a pay cut or be cut from the roster outright. Typically, the player has little or no guaranteed money remaining and limited prospects for signing a better contract with a different team.
Depending on the situation, the player may get some offsetting concessions such as new incentives, production based bonuses, guarantees, signing bonus or contract years added to or removed from the contract. Where the player has little leverage, he may receive no consideration at all.
The details of Andrew Wylie’s revised contract have now been made public, and it’s clear that he has taken a pay cut. Over the Cap states it plainly:
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