Some Details on Jake Long's Contract

[ckparrothead]

Miami Dolphins

LONG CONTRACT BREAKDOWN: It has been widely speculated that rookie OT Jake Long's contract is for five years. According to salary documents that Scout.com has gotten a chance to look at, Long's deal is actually for six seasons. However, Long can void the final year of the deal if two conditions are met.

Long has to be on the roster five days after team is done playing in the 2012 season (including playoffs).

The other condition is much easier to meet.

He has to participate in at least 35 percent of the plays in 2008 and at least 45 percent in either 2009, 2010, 2011, or 2012 regular season games. Since Long is penciled in to start this season and for many years to come, he'll meet the second condition easily unless he suffers a serious injury.

Long can also make up to $500,000 for this season if he is named as AFC Rookie of the Year ($250,000 bonus), AFC Offensive Rookie of the Year ($250,000 bonus), or NFL Rookie of the Year ($250,00 bonus). The contract stipulates he can only get paid for two of those achievements even if he won all three.

He can also make bonus money in future years for Pro Bowl appearances (he must be voted in and not named as a replacement) and for team wins.

There are a couple of ways to look at this. The signing bonus, reported as $30 million, will get expensed as if the contract is 6 years in length...which means $5 million of prorated bonus expense per year instead of $6 million. However, the contract itself is likely to only be 5 years in length. So, when looking at the bonus relative to Jamarcus Russell, the reports are that Russell got $29 million of bonus over 6 years. Jake gets $30 million over 5 years. That's still a 24% increase in bonus per year.

But, on the other hand, where before we were thinking the total contract was worth $57 million over 5 years, it's actually $57 million over 6 years. That's a big difference. Russell's contract is set to be worth about $64 million over 6 years, if you include a $3 million bonus that he only has take 45% of the snaps in 2008 or 50% of the snaps in 2009 to earn (easy to earn unless he gets hurt). If Long's $57 million was expensed over 5 years, then despite all the hoopla about Miami finding a way to pay a guy less money than previous years saw the #1 pick get paid...Miami will have actually given Long a 7% raise per year over Jamarcus Russell in terms of total money.

But, now we find out there is a 6th year and that year is included in the $57 million. That changes things considerably. That means the total contract is worth 10% less in terms of total money per year than Jamarcus Russell's deal.

The interpretation being that Miami negotiated a deal with Jake Long that is smaller than the one signed by Jamarcus Russell by about 10%, and in return for the concession, they made a higher portion of the contract guaranteed in the form of signing bonus.

Overall it does look like Miami found a way to do what guys like Peter King were suggesting, which is to have negotiations with multiple players and see if they can't drive down the total price tag involved with the contract. But, in order to accomplish that they had to make a concession and make a greater portion of the deal guaranteed...which I'm sure they were fine with because they were more sure that an offensive tackle would be worth $9.5 million per year over 5 or 6 years than they were about the other players.

 

[fatkirstyalley]

Sounds fair for both sides. Kudos to our FO for getting this done efficiently

 

[ckparrothead]

Now that I think about it, the net effect of all this might not be a 10% reduction in total money per year relative to Russell. The sixth year that Jake will end up voiding will probably have a salary of like $6 million maximum. Which would turn the entire deal into a 5 year, $51 million deal...which at $10.2 million per year would be more like 4.5% cheaper than Russell's contract.

But even so that's an accomplishment when you consider that the contracts are supposed to be expanding in total money every year by like 5 to 10%, not reducing.

 

[Tupac Shakur]

yes...finally some credibility to our cap/FO guys after seeing the group of clowns run the show for a number of years

 

[FinFilbert]

yes...finally some credibility to our cap/FO guys after seeing the group of clowns run the show for a number of years

For what it's worth, the Dolphins have had the same cap-specialist attorney negotiating and executing all their player contracts for a number of years now. Contracting has never been in the province of head coaching or general manager responsibilities.