Bengals updated salary cap space following Joe Mixon's pay cut
The next domino to fall in the Cincinnati Bengals' most important offseason in history tumbled last week as running back Joe Mixon took a unique pay cut to stay with the team for the next two seasons. Instead of terminating his contract and replacing it with a cheaper one-year deal, the Bengals managed to restructure […]
The next domino to fall in the Cincinnati Bengals' most important offseason in history tumbled last week as running back Joe Mixon took a unique pay cut to stay with the team for the next two seasons.
Instead of terminating his contract and replacing it with a cheaper one-year deal, the Bengals managed to restructure what remained of his original contract by cutting his base salary in both 2023 and 2024. It's essentially a two-year pay cut.
This has implications on the Bengals' cash reserves, as well as their salary cap space for the next two years. Both are important for their own reasons, but the current cap space matters in terms of ensuring extensions for Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins, and even Logan Wilson are possible this year.
What are Joe Mixon's new cap hits?
The pay cut that Mixon took essentially minimized his base salaries, and the leftover cash was placed into roster bonuses of $4.128 million this year, and $3 million next year.
He's already earned his 2023 roster bonus for just being on the roster past the first few days of the league year, and he'll earn the 2024 bonus if he stays on the team past March 19. These will act as his practical guarantees.
The money that was cut from Mixon's pay is reflected in his remaining cap hits, which are listed on OverTheCap.com.
Joe Mixon's remaining cap hits
2023: $8.46 million
2024: $8.5 million
Before this unique restructure occurred, Mixon's cap hit for this season was $12.791 million, and his 2024 cap hit went just over $13 million. This means the Bengals are saving $4.331 million in cap space this year.
How much cap space do the Bengals have now?
The Bengals' newly found cap savings has increased their cap space to $19,235,580, the ninth-most in the NFL right now. This is how much space the team has just by counting the top 51 players cap hits on the roster, which is how offseason cap space is calculated.
The Bengals won't use every penny of this nearly $20 million amount up until September rolls around, but extensions for Burrow and Higgins will cut into it a decent amount as their signing bonuses and potential base salary raises will eat into this year's cap.
Bengals finally arrive at a win-win before training camp
The best possible scenario was also a foregone conclusion for the Bengals.
Featured image via © Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
