According to Pro Football Talk and confirmed by Joe Person, the Panthers have restructured the contract of TE Greg Olsen to save $2.4M against the salary cap. The team has converted some of Olsen's salary into a bonus to reduce his cap hit, while preventing him from taking a pay cut.
Based on information acquired from Spotrac, this move brings the Panthers down to approximately $125M against the cap*, meaning they still have a little bit of work left to get down to the league mandated $123M cap by March 12th. We should expect GM Dave Gettleman to make a few more moves like this in the near future, as they are the best way to trim small parts off the cap because they allow the Panthers to maintain the core pieces of their roster for next season.
* - Note: This number may or may not be correct. There are currently multiple cap figures for Carolina floating around the interwebs, and no one knows for sure which one is the correct one. For example, Joe Person states that the Panthers are now $6.6M over the cap after restructuring Olsen.
This is a great move by the Panthers because it saves money, keeps a very important player on the roster, and makes getting under the salary cap even easier than it was before. Kudos to Olsen for being willing to restructure his contract to help out the team, and we can all hope that several more Panthers will be willing to pitch in and help get the team's salary cap situation back on track.
As always, stay tuned to CSR for any breaking news regarding contract restructures as they happen.