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I believe that a restructured contract is a new contract and needs to signed. For example, I don't think that bonuses and salary are treated the same for pension purposes. In any case, I don't see Brady, Wilfork, Mankins or Mayo refusing to restructure.
Not sure if converting to fully guaranteed signing bonus and paying it up front counts as a change in terms or merely an accounting function. Team couldn't incentivize salary or change roster bonus to salary without player consent because that has the potential to alter contractual earnings. If they do have to sign off on conversion to signing bonus it's a formality after the fact as the alternative is the team may cut your ass, same as in reductions in salary restructures that you do have to sign off on. Although now that I think about it they may as the rules for recouping signing bonus did change in the new CBA to allow some recovery to be persued in cases where the player screws up or becomes unavailable due to NFI related circumstances.