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Baker Mayfield: Fire The Cannons

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Can someone explain the Dak contract? I hear he has a dead cap of $71M but only a cap hit of $44M how did that work?
 
natedagg said:
Do I have this right? Our leverage is to extend early and not pay him too little on one of those rookie years, as well as get him that fat signing bonus and reduce his risk of career earnings injury in the year.

As far as the market rate goes.... yikes that Dak deal is crazy.
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Yes. This is 100% our only leverage at the moment.
 
bigfoot5415 said:
Can someone explain the Dak contract? I hear he has a dead cap of $71M but only a cap hit of $44M how did that work?
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So to start, the numbers you have in this post differ slightly from ive seen in other places but ill try to explain, keeping it very simple.

In the NFL when a player signs a contract, a portion of that contract is in a signing bonus. That signing bonus for cap purposes is spread equally across the cap for the length of the initial contract. If team cuts or trades that player before the end of his contract all of "remaining bonus" gets pushed forward into the year he is cut/traded.

Im going to make up a contract here because its easier than dealing with Dak's specific contract. Lets say player X signs a 4 year, $30 million contract, with a $20 million signing bonus, $10 million in salary spread equally across the contract, with $22.5 guaranteed (signing bonus plus first year's salary). So to figure out this players cap hit we take the $20 million bonus and divide it by the 4 years of the contract length calculating that each year gets $5 million in cap hit from the bonus. Then we take the remaining $10 million, divide it by 4 and determine his annual salary is $2.5 million each year. This means on paper each year this player's cap hit is $5 million (bonus)+ $2.5 million (salary), for a total of $7.5 million.

Lets say after 2 years (beginning of year 3) a team decides to cut the player. There is still 10 million in unaccounted for bonus money that hasnt hit the cap yet, so that $10 million dollars instantly gets moved forward accounting for a 10 million dollars of "dead cap" hit.

Now ultimately this contract i presented is a gross simplification just to get the point across and Dak's contract is a bit more complicated as there is a lot of guaranteed money in it which changes all of these numbers. But basically it comes down to if the Cowboys cut/traded Dak for whatever reason after this year he would have a dead cap hit of "71 million" (ive actually seen it would be closer to 73).

edit: This is also the reason that OBJ's contract isnt killing the Browns. OBJ's signing bonus has already been eaten by the Giants, what is left is nothing but his annual salary each year, none of which is guaranteed. Meaning that OBJ's remaining contract is basically nothing more than a series of 1 year options for the Browns to either pick up or not pick up. Though next year's salary is mostly guaranteed as OBJ suffered a torn ACL. However after that the browns could cut or trade OBJ and there would be no concern from a cap space perspective.
 
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natedagg said:
Do I have this right? Our leverage is to extend early and not pay him too little on one of those rookie years, as well as get him that fat signing bonus and reduce his risk of career earnings injury in the year.

As far as the market rate goes.... yikes that Dak deal is crazy.
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In theory, the earlier the Browns are able to reach a contract extension with Mayfield, the cheaper it will be for the team.

Considering Baker's salary for 2021 and 2022 is going to be unchanged regardless, it's a near certainty that he's willing to bet on himself having an even better 2021 than he had in 2020.

Then with the cap rising to all new heights combined with him having another year of evidence to cite that he's actually good, he'll ask for and get a contract bigger than the one Dak just got this time next year.

There's also the added factor that I'm sure Baker's representation paying particularly close attention which is the Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson situations. Both of those guys are also eligible for big contract extensions coming out of the same draft class and I suspect that none of the three want to be the first to sign knowing that they'll be surpassed by the counterparts immediately thereafter. Silly and petty, but that's how these agents treat this stuff.

The only risk Baker runs by waiting is career-ending injury or significant regression 2019 style.

Even a serious injury is unlikely to change things. Dak got his leg snapped and needed multiple surgeries to fix it and still got paid.
 
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bigfoot5415 said:
Can someone explain the Dak contract? I hear he has a dead cap of $71M but only a cap hit of $44M how did that work?
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In the most basic terms, there are certain bonuses that from a cash in hand perspective actually get paid out to the player immediately upon putting pen to paper. But from a salary cap perspective that bonus money is spread out over the life of the contract.

If you sign a 5 year contract worth 100M dollars with 50M guaranteed at signing. You are getting a $50 million dollar check the moment you put your name on that contract.

But for the team, that $50M bonus is spread out in $10M increments on their cap sheet over the life of the 5 years contract.

So your "cap hit" in year 1 would be whatever your base salary in 2021 (for simplicity's sake we'll say it's a flat $10M + $10M in bonus dollars).

So you player are walking away with $60M bucks in year 1 of the deal, but only $20M of that is going on the team's salary cap in 2021.

Also if you get released or traded before the end of the contract, say the team decides to dump you after year 1, then all your remaining bonus money that was set to hit the cap in years 2-5 of the deal immediately gets accelerated up into the current year as "dead cap".

Dead cap is always going to be higher than cap hit early in a contract.

Cap hit is always going to be higher than dead cap later in a contract.
 
col63onel said:
During Lebron 1.0 in Cleveland, Bayless made his name by being a Lebron hater. After Lebrons game 5 vs Detroit in 2007, I tuned in to see him eat crow. He instead he claimed Lebron choked because of a few missed free throws.

At that point, I realized these guys don’t argue in good faith. Not worth my time.
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So true. Had a similar “a-ha!” moment a decade ago, forget what it was but it totally changed my view on the pundits. They are purely there as entertainers and to garner clicks, by any means. Nothing more.
 
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Agreed. The pundits are about as 'real' as pro-wrestlers. They have a role or persona and are paid to never deviate from that. If you watch them with that in mind you can even appreciate their grift.
 
Malacogary said:
Agreed. The pundits are about as 'real' as pro-wrestlers. They have a role or persona and are paid to never deviate from that. If you watch them with that in mind you can even appreciate their grift.
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Kayfabe is dead.
 
The Oi said:
If Baker was a girl you knew in college he’d be the one that looked pretty hot at the gym, looked great dressed as a ho at the bars and even looked cute in the morning in pyjamas.

But one morning just after you started fucking her... you and some buddies were walking by the women’s bathroom, she walked out by herself and an absolutely rancid Taco Bell dump smell flew into the hall with her.

Your buddies reminded you of the morning dump every time they saw her at the gym, every time they saw her at the bar and that’s really all anyone said about her for the rest of college.

Maybe they were jealous. Maybe they were just idiots. Didn’t matter. The image was sealed.

But regardless, as far as this thread goes...he’s become the hot girl that took the morning dump.
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Feel like he might not be anymore.
 
This is an unpopular opinion but Colin Cowherd doesn’t really bother me irrespective of his position on Baker. I know this is random to broach but oh well
 
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