The Baltimore Ravens have made a tweak on Odell Beckham Jr.'s contract, and now the parties have an established date to define their future — together or not. And that date is March 14, the second day of the new league year.

According to Ravens cap analyst Brian McFarland, the team decided to remove future void years from Beckham's contract, which allows it to use a post-June 1st designation to prorate his dead money. It's a complicated cap mechanism, but the Ravens are basically moving money to the future to create 2024 cap space.

How the contract was initially designed

Baltimore gave Odell Beckham a one year, $15 million contract. He also earned an extra $1 million reaching incentives for receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. However, the team structured the deal in a way for the initial cap hit to be as low as possible.

Odell got a veteran minimum base salary ($1.165 million), plus $13.835 in the form of a signing bonus. They added four void years, so the signing bonus would prorate through the life of the deal. Moreover, his incentives were not likely to be earned, which means they wouldn't count against the 2023 cap.

In practicality, Odell's cap hit this season was $4.932 million. According to the way the deal was initially structured, his contract would void if no extension was signed, and that would create $11.068 million in dead money for the Ravens in 2024. Odell would become a free agent.

What has been changed

By taking the void years away, the Ravens will still have $11.068 million in dead money. However, they can designate him to a post-June 1st release.

In that scenario, the team doesn't open any cap space until June, but future prorations don't accelerate until the following year.

So, instead of having $11.068 million of dead money in 2024, they will have $2.767 million in 2024 and $8.301 million in 2025. This, of course, if no extension is reached by then.

Decision date

To agree to the adjustment, Odell Beckham also needed something in return. And the tweak created a well established date for the Ravens to make a final decision.

Under the new version of the deal, Odell has a veteran minimum salary in 2024, allowing the Ravens to free up cap space before the deal gets off the books in June. But the deal has a $50 million poison pill salary for 2025, and that becomes fully guaranteed on March 14.

Baltimore would obviously not let that happen. So there are two possible scenarios: either the parties agree to an extension by then, which would allow the proration of the old contract to keep stretched, or the Ravens will release Beckham with a post-June 1st designation, making the wide receiver a free agent early in the process.

There's only one negative repercussion of that for the Ravens. When a player's contract voids and he becomes a free agent, he still counts for the compensatory pick formula. With the new structure, it would be a release, meaning that Odell wouldn't generate a comp pick for Baltimore if/when he signs elsewhere.

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Strong take from OBJ.