With the Falcons gearing up for the 2025 season, they’re carving out a little more cap room to help them weather the season ahead. They’ve reportedly restructured Darnell Mooney’s deal for $6 million in 2025 cap space to make that happen.
This will lead to speculation aplenty, but the Falcons seem exceedingly unlikely to make a move of any consequence just days before Week 1. If anything, they’ll get a good look at their team against the Buccaneers and do something from there. I would still bet on this being insurance money for the season ahead more than anything else, especially because I don’t believe Atlanta has that much space to work with. I’m bad at math and Over The Cap is still listing the top-51 number, which has the Falcons in the red, but I believe they’ll be sitting between $5-$10 million in space. That’s not splash money.
As this is a simple restructure, the hits will be spread out over the life of the contract, which is one year and three void years in total. The Falcons have Mooney under contract next year for a fairly hefty hit north of $18 million, with the ability to clear quite a bit of space with a post-June 1 designation while absorbing a hit that will be north of $6 million. If Mooney plays well this year with Michael Penix Jr., the likelier option is likely an extension to spread out those hits and allow them to continue to build around the franchise quarterback, and I fully expect Mooney to play well.
I’m not a cap wizard—you gathered that—so we’ll look to get more updated estimates of the team’s cap space and their future obligations to Mooney soon. But the good news is that this helps the team be a little more flexible this year as injuries inevitably crop up and the team wants to tinker with their practice squad and the bottom of the roster, so it’s hard to argue with.