Buffalo Bills create $3.74M in cap room with 2024 salary conversion for Connor McGovern

The Bills have begun the necessary work to be cap compliant for the 2024 NFL season

The Buffalo Bills have begun the necessary work to reduce their salary cap overage ahead of the official start of the 2024 NFL free agency period and, furthermore, the regular season. Monday evening, Tom Pelissero broke the news first that the Bills were converting left guard Connor McGovern’s current contract to guarantee his deal for 2024 while clearing $3.74 million in cap space.

Later on Monday, Spotrac shared more details about the McGovern conversion, noting that “The #Bills converted $4.675 million of OL Connor McGovern’s 2024 base salary into signing bonus, adding 2 void years, clearing $3.74M of cap space this season.”

As of writing (and without figuring in McGovern’s reported conversion), the Bills were somewhere in the neighborhood of $41 million and 43.8 million over the cap (and a lower figure of $36.7 million over, according to NFLPA records, and shared in this tweet from Greg Tompsett at Cover 1). The lower figure represents the the offseason roster contract rosters of the top 51 contracts, while the higher figure represents the cost for the top 53 contracts.

The bad news is that Buffalo is still over the cap limit after considering the expanded 2024 NFL salary cap, which includes $13 million more in available money than originally predicted.

So, while the cap ceiling figure for this coming season is helpful, general manager Brandon Beane has plenty of work to do just to get One Bills Drive in compliance with the league-mandated salary cap. All this before the team can even consider signing its own free agents, those from outside the club, and any of the potentially 10 draft picks they welcome to the Buffalo Bills.

As has been the case in recent seasons, expect additional moves like this to be made with the Bills’ current roster, leveraging restructures that add void years and spread out the cap hit for several players’ contracts.

While not official from the team at this point, doing the math tells us that the Bills are now somewhere between $37.3 million and $40.1 million over the cap (or $33 million when considering the NFLPA figure from above). The 2024 NFL salary cap is locked in at $255.4 million, an increase of $13 million over what was originally predicted.