The Bills can restructure, but the salary cap is real.
I keep reading people in the comments and folks on social media hoping we are going to restructure Josh Allen’s contract to lower his cap number. Yeah, they’re going to do that, at least initially. But I also think folks are overvaluing how much space it’s going to open.
In the past, the Bills have been able to open considerable cap space with Allen restructures — up to $40 million — but all of that is catching up to them.
When you restructure a contract, you spread the cap hit out evenly over up to five seasons via a new signing bonus. This is now the fifth year of Allen’s massive extension, so five layers of signing bonus and restructures are on the books, meaning Allen is going to have the largest cap hit he’s ever had in 2025.
Here are the previous restructures and how they impact 2025
2021 signing bonus: $3.3 million
2022 option bonus: $8.48 million
2023 restructure: $5.284 million
2024 restructure: $4.175 million
2024 renegotiation: $7.5 million
That’s more than $28.7 million already locked in that they can do nothing with for 2025 plus you need to add in his 2025 cash in some fashion.
Restructuring Allen’s deal as-is would make his cap number $34.5 million. Allen’s previous high for cap figure was $30.4 million in 2024.
I also expect the Bills to pony up more money to Allen sometime this offseason when things calm down. That will raise his cap number, as well.
It’s going to be a long time until the Bills have a QB cap hit under $34 million again. It should once again show that the salary cap is very real.