South Gwinnett News

With quarterback Matt Ryan's salary cap hit set to be the league's largest, Falcons' brass reworked his deal to cut costs by $12 million for the 2022 season. 

Falcons General Manager Terry Fontenot told ESPN.com this week that the team's massive contracts were a subject of conversation at this month's NFL combine. Of those, Ryan's cap number had been at the forefront of discussions regarding the Falcons getting under the salary cap.

"It is a challenge," Fontenot said in the ESPN report. "I wouldn't say it's a problem. I would say it's a challenge, something we have to work around."

As part of the new deal, the team converted $7.5 million of Ryan's base salary and a $7.5 million roster bonus into a signing bonus, the report said.

This is the fourth straight year the Falcons have restructured Ryan's contract, the report said. The quarterback is under contract until after the 2023 season, when his cap hit will be nearly $47 million, but the deal's potential dead money at that time will drop to approximately $27.6 million.

After Ryan's restructure and the suspension of wide receiver Calvin Ridley last week, the team now has over $16 million in cap space for the season, the report said. News of sports betting against Ridley led to his suspension for the entirety of the upcoming season, a move that reportedly took $11.1 million off Atlanta's books for the year.