The NFL finally has its own equivalent to MLB's Shohei Ohtani contract, and in both instances, the financial creativity is coming from a Los Angeles-based franchise.
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The Los Angeles Rams restructured edge rusher Myles Garrett's contract on June 4, three days after acquiring him in a trade with the Cleveland Browns. The contract details for Garrett's restructured deal came out via Spotrac on June 10, and they're unique in the extent of potential salary cap manipulation at play.
Much as how the Los Angeles Dodgers deferred $680 million of the total $700 million value of Ohtani's deal to 2034 and beyond, the Rams have given themselves similar flexibility with Garrett's deal. By adding eight option bonuses and eight void years to the back end of Garrett's contract, Los Angeles has given itself the ability to push a significant part of the cap hit from his $208.2 million deal into future years – beyond the length of the five-year contract.
According to the contract numbers provided by Spotrac, nearly $40 million of the total $208.2 million in Garrett's contract currently won't affect the Rams' cap numbers until 2031. Even though Garrett is only under contract through 2030, Los Angeles' restructured deal has allowed the Rams to spread out $39.9 million in cap hits from 2031 to 2034 with a chance to push even more of the hit in future seasons to years beyond that – between 2035 and 2038.
Here's a closer look at Garrett's restructured contract with the Rams:
Myles Garrett contract restructure details
- Term: 5 years
- Total value: $208.2 million
- AAV: $41.64 million
- Guaranteed money: $99 million
Garrett's restructure includes a $35.7 million signing bonus and $37 million guaranteed this year, according to Spotrac. More notably, the Rams added eight option bonuses and eight void years to Garrett's contract as part of the restructure.
Essentially, the option bonuses and void years added to the five-year deal give the Rams additional flexibility against the salary cap without needing to restructure Garrett's contract again down the road.
How option bonuses and void years benefit the Rams
The Rams can now choose to exercise (or not exercise) the option bonuses on Garrett's contract for each of the final four years of his deal. If Los Angeles needs additional cap space in a given season, it can exercise one of the option bonuses for that year, which would count toward the cap hit in one of the future void years.
For example, if the Rams need to exercise Garrett's option bonus in 2027 to create cap space for next season, the cap hit from the option bonus would get kicked to the 2035 void year, and so on.
As of June 2026, the last four of the eight void years on the deal are "vested," per Spotrac. In other words, while the void years between 2031 and 2034 are associated with $39.9 million in cap hits, none of the void years between 2035 and 2038 currently carry additional dead cap.
However, the four option bonuses on Garrett's contract for each of the 2027 through 2030 seasons would correspond to an additional, voided contract year – which is where those 2035 through 2038 void years would come in.
Once Garrett is no longer on the Rams' roster, all of the dead cap pushed into void years gets accelerated onto the contemporary league year. So barring an extension for Garrett, all of the cap hits Los Angeles ends up pushing into the 2031 through 2038 seasons would actually hit the Rams' cap space in the 2031 league year – it would not remain spread out (like Ohtani's deferred money is with the Dodgers).
Worth noting also is that the option bonus system is essentially just a cap manipulation strategy to kick the hit from Garrett's deal into further seasons. Garrett will receive the same amount of cash regardless of whether an option bonus is exercised. (That's another difference from Ohtani's Dodgers contract, which will pay out $68 million annually for 10 years after his deal ends in 2033.) All that changes for Garrett is the way the money on his deal counts against the salary cap – whether it affects the Rams' cap space in the present or the future.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Myles Garrett contract restructure details: Rams add eight void years