3 contract decisions that will pay off greatly for the Chargers

3. The Chargers are going to benefit in the long run from the bold restructures

The Chargers fully restructured the contracts of Khalil Mack, Mike Williams, Keenan Allen and Joey Bosa this offseason in order to make room to bring back key players from last year's team. While this helped this offseason, it is going to make things trickier in the future.

This increased the cap hit for each player in 2024 and also decreased the amount of dead money the Chargers could clear up by cutting any of the restructured players. According to Over The Cap, this left the Chargers $60 million over the projected cap for the 2024 season.

While that seems like a monumental hill to climb, the Chargers can get back under the cap and still have long-term flexibility. This was a perfect example of the team maximizing what it can do in 2023 while not really changing the plans for 2024 as the players that will be cut probably were expected to be cut anyway.

The Bolts can cut Khalil Mack, Mike Williams, Eric Kendricks and Dustin Hopkins to free up around $53.5 million. More work needs to be done but all four of those players would have likely been let go after the 2023 season regardless of what was done this offseason.

The team could also benefit from signing Justin Herbert to his extension. Right now he is on the books for a $29.5 million cap hit as part of his fifth-year rookie option. The Bolts can get that number down with an extension to free up more cap space in addition to any other cuts they make.

Then the books after the 2024 season are as clear as can be. Sure, the team will have a massive Herbert salary to pay, but as it stands right now the Bolts have $133 million in projected cap space for 2025. They are not in the hole in the long run, they are just in the hole for 2024 and can easily dig out.