No. We can restructure his deal where we move $5 million (essentially the amount we'd save to cut him).
Well, technically, we could restructure him for more. He has a $10.9 million base, so if we cut his base down to $900,000, then we could turn the $10 million into bonus and prorate it over four years ($2.5 million per year). That would cut his cost next year from $16.75 million to $9.25 million ($7.5 million savings against the cap), but the cost to cut him the next year would increase to $13.5 million, still less than the $14.3 to keep him, so cutting him in 2024 would still be a salary cap savings, but not much.
However, if we made $7 million into bonus instead, then we'd have $5.25 move into the next three years (2024-26). That would mean 2023 reduces to $11.5, which is lower than what we'd save to cut him. Then if we cut him the next year we'd save $3 million against the cap.
We're still going to eat a lot of dead cap, but it just depends on when you eat it. If Elliott has a year like 2021, then you cut him and take the nearly $5 million in cap savings. If he plays the full year like he was before getting hurt last year, you can restructure knowing that you can save money in 2023 and still cut him in 2024 if you necessary at a cap savings. You could probably even re-sign Pollard with the amount saved restructuring Elliott. But I'm not expecting that. I expect us to either keep Elliott or Pollard depending on how they play.
