The Kansas City Chiefs, who were tight to the salary cap, have agreed to a pay cut with linebacker Derrick Johnson, a league source told ESPN's Field Yates.
Johnson was due a base salary of $4.75 million for 2017 and up to $1 million in per-game roster bonuses. Under the new terms, Johnson received a $1 million signing bonus and a $1 million, fully guaranteed base salary, the source said.
The move creates about $4.25 million in cap space for the Chiefs and keeps a key leader around. The 2018 portion of Johnson's contract remains unchanged, the source said, other than the $500,000 proration of the new signing bonus.
Johnson, who will be 35 in November, is coming off a torn Achilles tendon that ended his 2016 season in December.
The Chiefs also negotiated a pay cut with fullback Anthony Sherman, the source said. Sherman's base salary was dropped from $1.55 million to a fully guaranteed $1.1 million. He had per-game roster bonuses of $12,500 that were dropped to $6,250, which created a total of $550,000 in cap space for Kansas City.
These moves likely helped facilitate the recent signing of defensive tackle Bennie Logan. The Chiefs signed Logan to a one-year, $8 million contract, a source told ESPN's Adam Schefter.
The NFL Players Association showed the Chiefs as having about $4.8 million in available salary-cap space as of Friday morning.
ESPN's Adam Teicher contributed to this report.