Philadelphia Eagles: Rodney McLeod reacts to reworked contract and returning in 2019
Philadelphia Eagles veteran safety Rodney McLeod is excited to return to the team while helping them out financially.
You’ve got to love offseason Howie Roseman! The Philadelphia Eagles general manager does it once again. We’ve heard all year long that the Eagles offseason would be slow since they don’t have much wiggle room to work with when it comes to cap space. Last season, they had the worst cap space situation in the NFL, so their offseason moves were quite limited. But thanks to Howie’s ability to rework player contracts, cap space won’t ever be too much of an issue for the team.
It was announced on Thursday that the Eagles were able to convince another player to rework their contract. Multiple players did it last season, but this time around it was the veteran safety, Rodney McLeod. After suffering a season-ending knee injury last year, McLeod’s future in Philly was immediately questioned, considering his nearly $10 million cap hit for next year.
With a price tag like that, many were under the assumption that McLeod could potentially be a veteran that gets released in an attempt to free up a large amount of cap space. Fortunately, the Eagles won’t have to do that as they crunched some numbers, and changed some figures around.
According to ESPN Insider Field Yates, McLeod will now earn only $1.5 million in base salary for 2019, as the rest gets added into a bonus. With that, the Eagles clear up a hefty $7.4 million in cap space for the 2019 offseason. That’s quite the start to the offseason for Roseman and the rest of the front office. That’s the first reworked contract, and probably won’t be the last.
McLeod reacts to his return
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McLeod took to Instagram on Friday afternoon to show his excitement for knowing that he’s guaranteed to be playing in midnight green this year. Although McLeod was technically on contract through 2020, there was a slight chance he could be released after his injury. Seeing as though the Eagles struggled to fill the void of McLeod when he went down early on, it was obvious that they need to bring him back for next season. Let’s be honest, the combination of McLeod and Malcolm Jenkins has been one of the better safety duo’s in the NFL over the last couple of years.
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Now, McLeod will continue to work on his rehab in an attempt to make it back to the team for the offseason practices. Since he went down early on, it would be shocking if McLeod isn’t ready to return by at least preseason. And even if that’s a stretch, we can’t imagine the veteran safety not being ready to return by the start of the 2019 season. We’ll see what happens when the time comes, but at least for now the Eagles can feel satisfied knowing that they will have him back and it won’t really hurt the cap situation at all.