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Cutting Wentz at the start of the league year would cost the team $59 million in dead money against the salary cap and would actually cost the Eagles $25 million in additional cap space, making this an inconceivably bad option.

For reference, overthecap.com is projecting next year’s salary cap to be around $176 million, which is an 11 percent decrease from this year because of revenue loss due to the global pandemic. There’s no way the Eagles, who are projected to be around $70 million over the projected cap already, can afford to flat-out cut Wentz, so we can get that out of the way now.

Also important: Wentz has a $10 million roster bonus due on the third day of the league year, which should be March 20 if the rest of this season goes off without a hitch. The Eagles would incur a $74 million dead-money charge against the cap if they cut him after that bonus.

Howie Roseman could designate the move as a pre-June 1 transaction, which would let him spread the cap charges out over two seasons, but even that is daunting. It would count for $34 million against the cap in 2021 and an additional $24 million against the cap in 2022. The biggest dead money charge against a team’s cap to date is Brandin Cooks’ $21 million against the Los Angeles Rams’ books this season. Wentz’s potential cap hit would be unprecedented and would cripple the Eagles’ roster building for several years.

Translation: It ain’t happening.

So if cutting him won’t work, what about a trade? While it will still hurt the team’s bottom line significantly, this is a far more palatable option for the Eagles if they decide to move on.

If they shop Wentz before his roster bonus kicks in, he’d count for $33.8 million in dead money for next season but it would save the team the $25.4 million cap hit. It would still be difficult to maneuver the lower salary cap, but, according to Over the Cap writer Jason Fitzgerald, there’s a way to do it, although it’s a lengthy one that involves trading or cutting Alshon Jeffery, DeSean Jackson, Marquis Goodwin, Derek Barnett, and Zach Ertz. It would also require restructuring deals with several players, including Fletcher Cox and Darius Slay.

“If you trade or June 1 [designation] Wentz, you don’t get any savings meaning that you will need to navigate the salary cap without getting cap relief from Wentz,” Fitzgerald wrote. “The path at that point is to cut Jeffery, Jackson, Goodwin, Barnett, and Ertz while kicking the can with restructures, at a minimum, on Cox, Slay, [Javon] Hargrave, [Lane] Johnson and [Brandon] Brooks while potentially extending [Brandon] Graham. That would give them a few dollars to play with, but the path is much easier if they can work with the Wentz contract numbers.”

https://www.inquirer.com/newsletters...-20201208.html