Dead Money and Cap Savings: Watkins` contract is a good introduction to how NFL contracts work. The contract shows the Chiefs wanted a lower cap for the contract in the first year. The team could afford to push a big guaranteed cap in the second year, and Watkins probably wanted the certainty that he would be a leader with a guaranteed salary in the second year. Cap Hit: We see that because the Chiefs paid the minimum base salary allowed in the first year of Watkins` deal, Watkins` cap is only $7.8m in the first year, which seems pretty impossible when you hear his contract in advance. However, the large-cap successes of the second and third years reflect this small success of the first year. Dead Money and Cap Savings: This shows the true usability of the Garoppolo agreement. Due to the insignificant signing bonus and early hat tricks, Garoppolo could have been cancelled after the second year of his contract. Quarterbacks usually have more guarantees to make sure they can have more security, but Garoppolo is betting he`s playing well enough that the 49ers have no reason to release him. Due to the insignificant dead money after the second year, Garoppolo`s contract is functionally a two-year/$57 million contract with three years of team option of approximately $24 million each. However, after the 2019 season, there were no more base salary guarantees and the prorated bonus on the contract was only $7 million, so the Chiefs could have cut Watkins in the third year of the trade. (That was a big factor in the Chiefs and Watkins` final deal on a restructured deal this offseason.) This push-and-pull of guarantees, dead money, and cap savings is carefully built by teams and players to make the team feel flexible and the player feel safe. Base salary: There are a few things going on here. The Chiefs structured Watkins` contract like many teams that have limited space, where the team gives the player the minimum base salary allowed in the first year of the contract to lower the cap reached in the first year.

Because of Watkins` four seasons in the NFL, the lowest they could give him is a base salary of $790,000. The Chiefs also guaranteed a portion of Watkins` salary in 2019. Cap Hit: Garoppolo`s contract is a true “frontal” contract, which is rare in the NFL. His $37 million cap reached in the first year is by far the highest cap reached during his contract, which is rare for major NFL contracts that extend beyond three years. Browse NFL contracts, salaries, team salary caps, payroll, transactions, player ratings, and more. Practice bonus: Watkins received some training bonuses for his contract. A player must participate in a number of off-season workouts to see this money. Alignment bonus: Watkins did not have an alignment bonus as part of his contract. Lineup bonuses aren`t always used in NFL contracts. The above contract is what the Kansas City Chiefs gave Sammy Watkins as a free agent in the 2018 offseason.

This is a good example of a fairly simple NFL contract. Prorated signing bonus: In this offer, the player receives a $16 million signing bonus. The player receives the $16 million in the first year, but the team can spread this money over the duration of the contract (up to five years). As this contract is for four years, the prorated signing bonus for each year is $16 million divided by four years, or $4 million per year. Once a fan understands how the intricacies of a contract work, a whole new perspective can be used to judge contracts. Many criticized the signing of Sammy Watkins at the time because of the large total money for the deal, but the Chiefs were able to pull out of the contract in third year and the contract wasn`t what it seemed. Cap Hit: Cap hit is the amount charged to the cap by what the player earns for the year. For all years of the contract, it is the same equation: salary plus prorated bonus, which is equivalent to $12.25 million. This is a contract invented to highlight many basic concepts and introduce them in a way that doesn`t cause headaches.

Alignment bonus: The $28 million bonus from the first year of the contract was due on the third day of the 2018 league year, while the contract was signed on February 8, 2018. The main reason this important team bonus was used was to give Garoppolo a lot of money in advance without having to calculate it proportionally via the contract. The rest of the alignment bonuses in Garoppolo`s contract are per-game bonuses that Garoppolo pays if he is on the 46-player roster on match day. Thus, for each game in which Garoppolo is active, he earns an additional $50,000. Dead Money and Cap Savings: At Dead Money, we can see how prorated bonuses are accelerated when a player is cut early. If the player with this contract is cut in the first year, not only the bonus of the first year counts in the cap, but also the remaining prorated bonuses all count against this year`s cap. If the player was cut in the first year, the total dead funds would be $16 million, and since the cap reached for the player is only $12.25 million in the first year, the actual savings of the cap would be negative, -$3.75 million. However, if the player is cut in the fourth year, there are only $4 million in guarantees left on the contract, while the cap reached is still $12.25 million. In this case, the savings on the cap would be $8.25 million.

Prorated signing bonus: Garoppolo`s $7 million signing bonus is extremely low for a quarterback. For reference, Russell Wilson received a $65 million bonus for his new contract. That low signing bonus gives the 49ers flexibility later in the trade. Base salary: As pointed out in the first part, the base salary determines the game tests that the player receives during the season. In this example, the player`s game checks would be the base salary ($8.25 million) divided by the number of games per year, or about $485,000 per game check. As a sequel to Part 1 of The Art of NFL Contracts, it`s time to translate these ideas and systems into examples to further illustrate what NFL contracts really look like. This process will help explain the context of these main ideas and the treaties themselves. A sortable, real-time list of active NFL contracts with total value, guaranteed money, and full salary breakdowns. This is further emphasized in Jimmy Garoppolo`s deal, where at the time many fans and pundits criticized the deal as an excessive payment from Garoppolo. However, after looking at the treaty and seeing how it was constructed, it is a very different treaty from what it initially seemed.

That`s the beauty of NFL contracts. These are complicated transactions that please not only the player, but also the general manager and the team. The back and forth between NFL front offices and players results in many unique contracts that need to be understood beyond a superficial level to truly understand. With this knowledge, all fans can form an informed opinion about contracts in the NFL. Contract: Five years, totalling $137 million, of which $48.7 million is fully guaranteed and $74.1 million is guaranteed for injuries. By using this website, you consent to security monitoring and auditing. For security reasons and to ensure that the public service remains accessible to users, this government computer system uses network traffic monitoring programs to identify unauthorized attempts, upload or modify information, or otherwise cause damage, including attempts to deny service to users. Unauthorized attempts to upload information and/or alter information to any portion of this website are strictly prohibited and liable to prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996 (see 18 U.S.C. §§ 1001 and 1030). If a user or application sends more than 10 requests per second, other requests from the IP address may be restricted for a short period of time.

Once the request rate drops below the threshold for 10 minutes, the user can continue to access the content on SEC.gov. This SEC practice is designed to limit excessive automated searches to SEC.gov and is not intended or should not affect individuals who visit the SEC.gov site. Please report your traffic by updating your user agent to include company-specific information. Base salary: What`s somewhat unique about Jimmy Garoppolo`s base salary is the fact that it guarantees a base salary for injuries. Garoppolo has a mix of full warranties and injury warranties. His base salaries in 2018 and part of 2019 were fully guaranteed, while the rest of the base salary in 2019 and part of the base salary in 2020 are guaranteed for injuries. Money earmarked for injuries will only be guaranteed if the 49ers release Garoppolo with an injury designation, meaning Garoppolo would not have a physical passport at the time of his release. For many people, it can be difficult to put concepts into practice and understand theoretical discussions in a tangible way. Note that this policy may change as the SEC maintains SEC.gov to ensure that the site works efficiently and remains available to all users.