Panthers rework C Matt Paradis' contract to clear $4.7M in cap space

After moving on from three players on Friday, the Panthers are continuing to open up cap space. ESPN’s Field Yates reports that the team has reworked center Matt Paradis contract. Specifically, the team converted $7.04M of the veteran’s $8.03M base salary into a signing bonus, opening up $4.69M in cap space.

Following a five-year stint with the Broncos (including a 2015 campaign where he started all 16 games for the eventual Super Bowl champions), Paradis joined the Panthers on a three-year, $27M contract in 2019. He’s started all 32 of the Panthers’ games since joining the organization, and he appeared in 100 percent of his team’s offensive snaps in 2020.

The Panthers made a handful of financial moves this week. On Tuesday, the team released defensive tackle Kawann Short, saving the team $8.6M in space. Then on Friday, we learned the team was planning to cut safety Tre Boston ($3.5M in savings), punter Michael Palardy ($1.9M) and defensive end Stephen Weatherly ($5.9M).

Carolina is now rolling with an estimated $31M in cap space, and these recent moves have saved the team more than $24M in space. As Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com observes, that would be more than enough extra money to slide someone like, say, Deshaun Watson onto the roster. We learned earlier this week that the Panthers were planning on making a run at the Texans quarterback.