05-27-2020, 01:01 PM
(05-27-2020, 11:52 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: I mean, there's a lot of ways to outline a potential contract, but the fact remains that a multi-year deal will require more guarantees than the franchise tag.
But tet's just reveiw your ballpark numbers real quick. This, as I understand, is ultimately what it looks like:
3 years 42 mil TOTAL, with 22 mil guaranteed. PLUS INCENTIVES.
Annually..
Year 1 - 14 mil (Fully guaranteed) + Incentives
Year 2 - 14 mil (4 mil guaranteed) + Incentives
Year 3 - 14 mil (4 mil guaranteed) + Incentives
In this scenario he's picking up an additional 3.5 mil in guarantees vs. the current fully guaranteed 18.5 mil on the tag. Let's be honest, that's not really all that much to attatch yourself to another 2 years.
So we have to assume that a number of the incentives are well within reach. Otherwise, I can't see him commited himself for another 2 seasons, with only 3.5 mil in guarantees and a 10 mil per base salary. So you'd probably see a roster bonus, a workout bonus, and then tiers of achievements. (X amount for starts, x amount for yards, x amount for Pro Bowls, etc.)
He's going to have to hit some of those if he plays this season. Again, a number of them will almost be built in if he actually plays. He's not going to commit to a 10 mil base salary to only net an additional 3.5 mil in guarantees if there's not a number of incentives within reach.
So let's assume he goes out and has an ok season, which results in 70 balls, 1,000 yards and sees him start at least 12 games. That's probably going to mean a good chuck of change in your scenario. Let's just say it nets him 5 mil in incentives.
You've now commited to a TOTAL amount of 27 mil dollars after one season.
And let's say he's healthy to start year 2, and you see more incentives hit (roster bonus, workout bonus, etc.) Let's say he flat out stinks or gets hurt, and only makes a couple mil in incentives. Adding only a couple million to his base salary.
You've not commited to a TOTAL of 39 mil through two seasons.
What happens if you want to cut him after year 1? What happens if you cut him during or after year two? What does it look like if he plays all 3 years?
Again, while 10 mil + incentives sounds great. If you start accounting for guaranteed money and the fact they have to be somehwat reasonable incentives then this contract starts to become a HUGE risk.
You can't just say, "Hey, here's an extra 3.5 mil so we can control rights for another 2 years. And we'll only pay you more if you get 1,200 yards or more.
Any way you slice it you're commiting way more money. In the above scenarios you'd be on the hook for 27 mil for one 1,000 year season if you wanted to cut bait. You'd be on the hook for 39 mil for a 1,000 yard season and a terrible season if you wanted to cut bait. You're paying out the nose for even average production.
I really don't see how this makes sense from our prespective at all. Where's the benefit?
As I said previously, I was responding to the notion, at least as I interpreted it, that an extension was just impossible because his signing bonus itself would have to be more than 18.5 million. So I was throwing out some round numbers just to say no, it's not like we'd have to take on unacceptable risk in future years.
And with all due respect, it appears your counter was to pose a scenario where he earns 5 million extra in incentives and in the process of doing so we can't cut him. Why would you want to cut a guy that made the incentives structured into his contract? I'm sure our front office is savvy enough to not put incentives in a contract that if met, the player still wasn't worth keeping around. That's the whole point of incentives. Incentives are the opposite of guarantees, and unless I misunderstand you here, you seem to be treating them the same.
If we did something like the deal I outlined, and he's either hurt all year or obviously in decline, we've spent 14m of cap space on him (less than we're schedule for right now) in 2020, and yes we'd be scheduled for another 8m in 2021. Cutting him before the season means we save around 10m but eat 8m. Your point is either that a) that's an unacceptable level of risk - in which case we just fundamentally disagree. I think that's okay for arguably the second best player in the history of our franchise. Or b) you're imagining that we'd keep him and he'd be mediocre and earn another 5m and then we'd cut him, in which case I just don't understand your rationale at all.
I'm not going to try to get into AJ's head and figure out what he'd accept. It depends on how serious he is about playing with one franchise (ala Fitzgerald), what he thinks his chances of staying healthy are, lots of things. But negotiations are all about finding a structure that works for both sides. Here's a structure that I think might be reasonable (if you don't agree with the numbers fiddle with them all you want):
3 years, 10.5m signing bonus.
2020: 10 million base salary fully guaranteed. AJ takes home 20.5m, more than he's schedule to make under his current tag.
2021: 1 million roster bonus due the third day of the new league year (or make it more if you want). 10 million base, not guaranteed. This basically guarantees that we don't do him like we did Andy and hold onto him deep into the summer. We either cut him in the first wave of free agency or not at all. Plus 2-3 million in incentives.
2022: Same as 2021.
From our perspective: It's a risk/reward trade off. The reward is that we hold his rights for 3 years if he plays well and we want to keep him. The incentives would be structured so that we'd basically have him at market value. And his 2020 cap number is lower. The risk is that we'd be on the hook for 7 million in 2021 and we'd have to cut him prior to the third day of the 2021 league year, but honestly I think we'd be ready to make that decision by then anyway. (or cut him after that and eat 8m, but that would be dumb).
From AJ's perspective: Worst case scenario is that the team decides to cut him after 2020, in which case he still made more money than he would under the tag. He goes to free agency in a timely fashion, just as he would if he plays this year out on the tag. Or the team pays the roster bonus more or less locking him in, in which case he has the market deal with the Bengals that he wants anyway. To some degree based on those incentives, sure, but that's part of the same negotiation process true of any player. My point is it's not somehow harder in AJ's case.
Bengals have the same decision to make in 2022, except that we'd only eat 3.5m.
