How much the Seahawks are paying P.J. Walker

The deadest of the dead portion of the NFL offseason has arrived for the Seattle Seahawks, with no work on the schedule until the middle of July at the earliest. That brings about the part of the offseason where things like contract restructurings, churn at the fringe of the roster and possible suspensions handed down by the league are the primary sources for news in the coming weeks.

With that being the case, it gives fans a chance to catch up on things, and one of the things that can now be caught up on are the details of the contract the Seahawks gave to the recently signed P.J. Walker. Aaron Wilson of KPRC2 Houston provided the details in a social media post Thursday.

So, Walker will have a $1.125M base salary for the 2024 season, but since he is a vested veteran with four or more accrued seasons signed to a contract that carries a veteran minimum base salary and less than $167,500 of incentives and bonuses, his contract qualifies for the veteran salary benefit. What that means is that instead of his $1.125M base salary counting against the salary cap in full, only $985k hits the team salary cap.

In addition, for those curious how his $20k roster bonus does not count against the cap, a roster bonus can be kept off cap calculations until it is earned by structuring it being earned in such a way that it is considered not likely to be earned.

In Walker’s case, the simplest way to do that would be to make the bonus payable if he is on the 53-man roster Week 1, since he was on the practice squad of the Cleveland Browns through Week 7 of the 2023 season. Alternatively, since he was only on the active roster of the Browns for eight games during the 2023 season, the roster bonus could be set up in such a way that he must be on the active roster for nine games to earn the incentive. The exact incentive the team used to make the bonus NLTBE may seem small, but given the team’s new aggressiveness when it comes to managing the salary cap since hiring Joey Laine earlier this offseason, it may provide vital clues for how the team will operate in the coming months and years.