Philly Front Office

Bryce Huff has been traded!!! On Friday the news was that Huff will be traded after June 1 to the SF 49ers for a mid round draft pick. This is an astonishing turn of events. Despite Huff being one of the Eagles’ big free agent signings last season, his exit does not hurt in the least. He was so ineffective that he did not even dress for the Super Bowl. There was almost no way the Eagles could get rid of him, but we not only managed to find a taker, but are even getting something of value in return. Let’s break it down.

Last offseason Huff signed with the Eagles for 3 years and $51m with a $17m signing bonus. We were banking on his limited play but high production scaling upwards. It didn’t. Aptly given the number 0, Huff went from ineffective to hurt to simply not playing as the season went on. It was a total failure.

After the season, rumor was that the Eagles were trying to move him. Good luck! I broke down his salary and contract earlier in the offseason explaining that trading him after June 1 was the best thing they could do. His $7.5m cap hit this season wasn’t terrible, but he was on the hook for big money going forward. A post June 1 trade would lower the cap hit to around $3m this season and $9.5m next season. This wouldn’t be bad for a team acquiring him either since they would not have to pay any of his signing bonus. How would we get a team to take him though? I really thought we would have to attach picks to any trade.

Word came out that not only were the 49ers trading for Huff, but they would be giving the Eagles a “mid round pick.” Literally ANYTHING is more than I thought it would be. The one thing I didn’t see coming is that they did not deal Huff straight up. Instead, the teams did a little salary cap gymnastics to ease the financial burden on the 49ers. Huff’s contract this season included a guaranteed $17m, $16m of which came in the form of an option bonus. The Eagles DECLINED that bonus. Wait, how can you decline a guaranteed option? Well, this as the effect of converting his bonus to salary instead (it usually goes the other way in a restructure btw). The Eagles agreed to pay around $9m of that salary with the 49ers picking up the other $8m.

Here is how that effects the salary cap. The $7.5m he was going to account for this season included around $3m in prorated signing bonus. The other $4.5m was going to be this year’s option bonus. That’s now gone, but they have to account for that $9m they retained. $2m of that will be on this year’s cap. So, from $7.5m that lowers to around $5m. We still need to account for the rest of the retained salary though and the rest of the signing bonus. That all goes to next year. By my count, that is another $9.5m in signing bonus and $7m from this season’s retained salary. That means $16.5m next year.

Field Yates reported that the Eagles would save $15m in cap space with this deal. That is simply not accurate. We are getting some cap relief this season, but things get a little worse next season. Thankfully he is off the books after that. Assuming the Eagles are getting any compensation for this deal (hopefully a 5th) this is a good deal to remove a complete negative from the team. Had he stayed, his cap hits would have been $12m in 2 years and then $27m the year after he was gone. Good riddance.