Mixon- Bengals had productive talks

[fredtoast]

(05-22-2020, 02:01 PM)Geno_Can_Dunk Wrote: I think you're right in principle, but this will not be as hard to do as you make it out to be. The franchise tag 18.5 is guaranteed for one year. It's basically a guaranteed base salary with no signing bonus. You might as well guaranteed his base salary in 2020 because it's not like we're cutting him no matter what he does this year. 

Figure it like this: 

3 year deal, $12 million signing bonus, 10 million base salary per year (forget workout bonuses and such for the sake of simplicity). 

If you then guarantee his base salary in year 1 (but not thereafter), he's getting 22 million his first year, way above what he's getting now. 

In years 2-3 he'd get a non-guaranteed 10 million base, but you can add to that those incentives other folks are talking about to kick it up to the mid teens. Or he might be interested in roster bonuses to disincentivize the team from releasing him a week after the draft like they did Andy (cut him early or not at all). The question is what's he willing to do in years 2-3 in exchange for giving him more guaranteed money now, fully knowing he's had trouble staying healthy as of late. 

Those are just rough numbers, not meant to be predictions, but note that in that scenario his 2020 cap hit would drop to 14 million, and I bet we could even get it lower. 

I would not do a deal like that.  If he can't play he will get $22 million cash this year and eat up $8 million in dead cap space next year.