Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:
Why cant we work out a deal with him where we restructure his salary to like 1.5m for 15 years then he retires and we relinquish his rights so he can walk free and do what he wants. Annual payment for him, dramatic cap savings for us.
What's wrong with that.
dude, I get it, it sucks that we had money tied up in a guy that is injured and can't play. Obviously, the benefit of hindsight tells us that it was mistake to sign him to that extension. Can't go back in time and fix that though. The reality is that his contract made it virtually impossible to cut him. Does it make sense to eat $20m or $18.7m or $14.4m for nothing? That's what his dead cap hit would have been if we cut him in 20, 21, or right now(Pre-June).
Even now, its not an easy decision to make. We still have to eat $9.5m and only get $2.5m cap savings. So really, the decision is: give up on him to save $2.5m or pay him $2.5m and hope he's healthy. All that other money, the 49ers are already on the hook for. Its a sunk cost.
Im not making the argument to keep him, just laying the facts out.
You don't understand how NFL contracts work. Even if you could extend him for 15 yrs at 1.5m, when he is released or cut, ALL of that pro-rated money accelerates to the current year.
The whole idea of the pro-ration is just for accounting reasons. In the simplest terms, if you signed a 5 yr contract with a $50m signing bonus, you get that lump sum upfront. The NFL just allows teams to spread that over the 5 yrs so for cap reasons, it'd count for $10m/yr plus whatever your base salary is. Its not like you're getting a check every yr for $10m from your signing bonus. Roster, workout bonuses, etc are a diff story. I just wanted to give a simple example.