vtiger72

The problem with this is that I cannot see Brees taking a salary reduction which is the only way a restructure actually creates any space.

Brees's cap hit is 26.4 million in 2015 and 27.4 million in 2016. For both of those years. 7.4 million is prorated signing bonus. That amount cannot be lowered. For 2015, Brees has a salary of 18.75 million. All but the vet minimum can be converted to signing bonus and prorated, but with only one year left on the deal, anything moved from 2015 would add to the already 27.4 million cap figure in 2016. And the amount of 18.75 can only be reduced by half. So, a Brees restructure can roughly create around 9 million in space, but that 9 million would be added to 2016 creating a 36.4 million hit in 2016.

There's really only 2 ways Brees can create room. One is a simple salary reduction. In other words, he agrees to be paid less (and let's be real- that is NOT going to happen) or unless they add years to the current contract which I think would be a lengthy negotiation which Brees still would want to be paid market value. So, he's still gonna want an AAV of around 18-20 million.