You have to look at it as cap figures vs. actual money which are not the same thing. The players want the actual money and the team wants the manageable cap figure. So if we straight up cut Deangelo, he would lose a lot of actual money and our cap figure wouldn't be any better really. So you go to him and say instead of cutting you, why don't you agree to a more team friendly contract and keep a much higher portion of the money. It's just that it normally works in both parties best interest to restructure.
There are more detailed explanations but I think that's a pretty good layman way of looking at it.
actual money=signing bonus? Correct? They are guaranteed that once they sign the contract! Everything else is based upon being on the team and /or performance. If we cut a player, then we are still charged his remaining signing bonus, how much is still determined by when we cut him, correct?
Using Dwill, if we cut him.......then we still owe him what's left of his signing bonus, but we are off the hook for base salary! So, then Dwill signs with another team and will be paid by that team while getting the remaining portion of his signing bonus here. Right?
Now, I would prefer to use Beason as an example. Someone explain how we could have him restructure without taking an actual/guaranteed and base salary cut while making his deal cap friendly?