NGT - Eagles Contracts - Void Years and Low Cap Hits

[uconnjack8]

I have been looking at the Eagles contracts for a few weeks.  I started this last year looking at how Lane Johnson and Jason Kelce's contracts looked if they decided to retire.  What I found is that almost all of the Eagles bigger name vets have 3 or more void years on their contracts.  I don't fully understand how all that works but it seems like it allows teams to spread guaranteed money further into the future and therefore taking a smaller hit annually. 

I got more interested this year when looking at Jalen Hurts contract.  He signed an extension back in April of this year.  The prevailing thought process is that having a QB on a 2nd contract is a big obstacle to obtaining talent elsewhere because of the huge yearly cap hits of QB contracts.  Here are Hurt's cap numbers:

2023 6.1m
2024 13.6m
2025 21.8m
2026 31.7m
2027 41.8m

So even with Hurts on a 2nd contract, the Eagles will not see his cap number go above 32M until 2027.  That can change if the Eagles restructure or whatever else, but for the next several years, his contract will not be a major factor in the team acquiring talent.  I would guess that by 2027 when it gets to 41.8m, that number will be low for a good starting QB. 

Its not just Hurts, they have a lot of players with contracts like this. 

Here are 3 examples Lane Johnson, Darius Slay, and James Bradberry.    The cap hits over the next couple of years are what kind of amaze me.  Its allowing this team to keep talent and still add talent in a way that I have not seen before this.  Did Howie mortgage the future (2026 and beyond) to win a Super Bowl now?  Or is the future not really mortgaged and they will be able to avoid any big repercussions in the future? 

It boggles my mind that a team with as much talent as the Eagles and a QB on a 2nd contract, still has more cap space than the Giants for next year. 

Anyone have a really solid understanding of how this works?

[Bob In PA]

uconn: Nice analysis, great choices for the examples. Thanks for doing this. Bob