Telvin Smith restructures Jaguars contract

The Jacksonville Jaguars and linebacker Telvin Smith agreed to a restructuring of Smith’s contract, according to Field Yates of ESPN. The deal converts an $8 million roster bonus due to a signing bonus, clearing about $8 million in cap room for 2017. Smith still gets the money in the form of a signing bonus, which also means that $2 million of it will be spread across the remaining four years of the deal.

With this restructure and the release of veterans Allen Hurns and Marcedes Lewis, it pushes the Jaguars current salary cap figure to about $17 million under the cap. At this point the team didn’t really need to start creating cap room for anything, as free agency for the most part is over with, at least the expensive part and there doesn’t appear to be any re-signings on the horizon.

Not that the Jaguars don’t have anyone that merits a new long term deal, but there simply isn’t anyone they can actually re-sign at this point. Jalen Ramsey and Myles Jack fall under CBA rules where they cannot negotiate a new deal until after the 2018 season and there isn’t much from the 2015 NFL Draft class that would command big spending, unless you want to extend Dante Fowler, Jr., which seems unlikely.

At worst, it gives the Jaguars room to make a trade for a veteran if they want or to simply just roll the room over next season.