Vikings restructure Harrison Smith’s contract, create $6M in cap space

In order to create some room under the salary cap, the Minnesota Vikings have restructured the contract of one of their longest-tenured members.

Per Field Yates of ESPN, the Vikings have restructured the contract of safety Harrison Smith. The move gives them $6 million worth of cap room, which they needed to make the deals they’ve agreed with over the past couple of days official.

Smith had a roster bonus of $8 million due this week. The Vikings have converted that roster bonus to a signing bonus, a move that allows them to spread the amount out over the length of Smith’s contract. That’s where the $6 million in savings on this year’s cap come from.

Teams don’t need to ask players for permission to convert roster bonuses to signing bonuses, so it’s an easy way to reduce a cap figure for most teams. It remains to be seen whether or not the Vikings will take the same approach with defensive end Danielle Hunter. Hunter has a whopping $18 million roster bonus due on Sunday, but converting it to a signing bonus would save them $13.5 million on this year’s cap.

We’ll likely see a couple more moves like this over the course of the next few days, but the new front office has gotten the ball rolling by re-doing Harrison Smith’s deal to create cap room.