Staying busy during their bye week, the Dallas Cowboys have restructured the contract of 32-year old RT Doug Free to free up additional cap room. With the approaching trade deadline, the move could signal a pending transaction, or could just be the team tidying up a bit.

Source: the Cowboys converted $2M of OT Doug Free's base salary into a bonus, creating $1M in cap space in 2016. — Field Yates (@FieldYates) October 21, 2016

Free had originally signed a three-year, $15 million deal restructure before the 2015 season. He was making $4 million in base salary this season and counted towards $5.5 million against the cap before the restructure. As per the Field Yates tweet, his new cap charge will be $4.5 million, with two million of his remaining base salary being converted into a bonus.

Free has long-been a steady fixture of the Cowboys offensive line. Since 2009, he’s played in 113 of 118 possible games, starting 104 of them. He was seen as an extremely promising player early in his career, and at one point was the heir apparent at left tackle for former Dallas great Flozell Adams. Free started all 16 games at left tackle during the 2010 and 2011 seasons. His play regressed though, and the team switched his position with 22 year old, second year tackle Tyron Smith in 2012.

Since switching to right tackle however, Free has been considered the anchor and veteran leader of a young and very talented Cowboys offensive line. He’s currently signed through the end of next season, and now has a $7.5 million cap hit for 2017. After the Free restructure, Dallas has around $4.2 million in cap room to use throughout the rest of the season. With the trade deadline looming on November 1st, that room could be enough to take on a remaining player’s salary via trade for the rest of 2016.

Any unused salary cap space for 2016 rolls over to 2017, so if the extra $1 million doesn’t get used, it in essence will cover the additional $1 million added to next year’s cap from this deal.

In other words, it’s just smart accounting by the Cowboys in providing themselves flexibility.