Tennessee Titans discussing restructures for Kevin Byard, Derrick Henry
By Will Lomas
Cameron Wolfe covered the Tennessee Titans as a beat writer years ago, and even though he isn’t on that beat anymore he is still finding ways to break news about the team.
Today on an NFL Network hit, Wolfe stated that the Tennessee Titans are leaning away from using the franchise tag on Harold Landry. That makes sense and we actually wrote about why tagging Landry would create ripples throughout the roster that would probably end up hurting the team.
That wasn’t exceptionally surprising, but what was surprising was what Wolfe said about the ways that the Tennessee Titans are going to try to open up cap space.
There have been plenty of conversations online about cutting Rodger Saffold, cutting/trading Taylor Lewan, as well as other obvious moves. However, Wolfe says that Jon Robinson brought up the idea of restructuring contracts for Derrick Henry and Kevin Byard.
A look on @nflnetwork at #Titans pending decision on speedy pass rusher Harold Landry — their most important one in free agency — and how the $$ there may impact their ability to improve on offense: pic.twitter.com/NCfdN55SrG
— Cameron Wolfe (@CameronWolfe) March 7, 2022
How much would that help the Tennessee Titans?
You can read about the intricacies of manipulating the cap here in this Broadway Sports article on every significant move that the Tennessee Titans could make in free agency. The long and the short of it is that the Titans could restructure Derrick Henry’s deal to create about $5.5 million in space this year and Byard’s restructure could save about $7.3 million.
If Harold Landry wants to make an AAV of nearly $18 million, that means that his 2022 cap hit would probably fall a little short of that mark with the annual value rising each year to match the expansion of the cap.
That means that restructuring Kevin Byard and Derrick Henry’s deal would give them nearly all of the money they need to get a deal done with Harold Landry that keeps him under contract through his prime.
There would still be moves to be made, but the fact that Jon Robinson brought these ideas up means that the Titans are looking at every possible angle and that they understand that the ability to restructure contracts is a great tool to add space without sacrificing anything in the future.