The New York Jets have agreed on a contract restructure with guard Alex Lewis, keeping him around for competition and depth.
According to ESPN’s Field Yates, the New York Jets and guard Alex Lewis have agreed upon a restructured contract.
The Jets and G Alex Lewis have agreed to a reworked contract that pays him a base salary of $3M this year (previously $5.8M) while eliminating the final year of the deal in 2022.
Lewis, who is competing for the starting RG spot, is now scheduled to be a free agent in 2022.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) May 27, 2021
Lewis previously had two years remaining on the three-year, $18.6 million contract he signed with the Jets prior to the 2020 season. In 2021, he was set to have a cap hit of $6.8 million with a $5.8 million base salary.
According to Yates, the Jets lowered Lewis’s 2021 base salary to $3.0 million while eliminating the final year of his contract in 2022, essentially putting Lewis on a one-year, $3.0 million pact that expires after this season.
As Lewis’s deal only promised $5.6 million guaranteed, the Jets had the flexibility to release him without having to take on much dead money. If cut this offseason, the Jets would have saved $5.2 million in cap space while eating $1.7 million in dead money.
Lewis had a rough 2020 season. He allowed 24 pressures over 349 snaps in pass protection, a rate of 6.9% that ranked fourth-worst out of 66 qualified guards.
That level of performance isn’t quite good enough to warrant a $6.8 million cap hit, so it always seemed likely that the Jets would make a decision on Lewis.
Instead of cutting him, the sides met in the middle to keep him around at a reasonable cost to provide depth and compete against Greg Van Roten, Cameron Clark, Dan Feeney, Corey Levin, and possibly others for the starting right guard spot.
