Darius Slay: ‘Of course I want an extension with the Eagles. I love the Eagles.’
Negotiating a contract extension with the 32-year-old Slay would help the Eagles clear salary cap space.
Eagles Pro Bowl cornerback Darius Slay is looking to stay with the team on a potential extension as he heads into a contract year.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Slay said on the Montgomery & Co. Podcast released Friday. “Of course I want an extension with the Eagles. I love the Eagles. They took another chance on me trading for me, and I panned out very well of course. But yeah, I love that money, so of course I’m going to be talking about it this offseason. That’s everyone, that’s we all do when we’ve got one year left on our deal. We try to get the extension because it makes the cap low and then you get to start building around the team because once you’re cap’s too high, you can’t add more players. So with me, with my cap that high, I’m sure they probably want to get it down, and the best way to get it down is to give me some money.
“I love Philly, man. I plan on staying on Philly, but if it don’t happen, I know I got one year left here. I’d love to stay in Philly for sure.”
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Slay is under contract through 2023, although he has void years tacked onto the back end of his deal to offset cap charges. The Eagles will likely need to restructure Slay’s contract to clear cap space this offseason. He counts for $26 million against next season’s salary cap, but the Eagles could create about $12 million in space by converting his base salary into signing bonus.
Doing so would kick the can down the road and result in Slay’s cap charge increasing in 2024 after his current deal expires. The charge is already at $13 million because of the void years that stretch into 2026, and would effectively put the Eagles in the same situation next offseason but without Slay under contract. Extending Slay would also clear a similar amount of space and give the Eagles a chance to renegotiate the charges associated with the void years, but they will have to weigh the risk of Slay, 32, regressing while making significant money.