As Panthers General Manager Dave Gettleman begins to remake the team in his own image, a lot of the guys who got contracts from the old G.M. are getting pay-cuts.
The latest is safety Charles Godfrey. According to Field Yates of ESPN.com, Godfrey has taken a massive pay cut, dropping his base salary from $5 million to $750,000. He can still make $1.7 million of it back in per-game bonuses.
The deal was a no-brainer on several levels, primarily because Godfrey has no leverage after tearing his Achilles last year and then watching the team bring in Thomas DeCoud and Roman Harper.
Like running backs DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart, Godfrey chose to stay for less, and his decision created around $4 million worth of cap space for the Panthers, which they needed.
The one wild card in this situation that could benefit Godfrey is their lack of depth at cornerback. He played there at Iowa before converting to safety, and there’s some thought inside the building that he could play as a nickel back after the departure of Captain Munnerlyn.