Asante Samuel's Contract

I do so love the Eagles' organization.  Just one day after the strangest, least well-argued critique of the team that you'll find anywhere outside a message board, the Inquirer's Bob Brookover magically comes across an anonymous source willing to provide all the details of Asante Samuel's new contract.

And wouldn't you know it, this information doesn't do much to support our favorite law student's case.

I don't want to step all over our man Bryce's salary cap space, but since this new contract info just came out, here's a quick and dirty chart showing Asante's cap numbers:

So the first thing to notice is that, yeah, we're looking at some substantial cap numbers here.  As Brookover notes, "The Pro Bowl cornerback also will be paid a workout bonus of $500,000 for 2008, which means his salary-cap figure for 2008 is $9.145 million. Only quarterback Donovan McNabb has ever had a salary-cap figure that high for the Eagles."

But take a look at the way the Eagles have structured the deal.  As we expected, the vast majority of the guaranteed money ($14 million of $20 million) will come in two separate roster bonuses, to be paid in 2008 and 2009.  Because those result in an immediate cap hit, rather than being prorated over the life of the deal, Asante is really only impossible to cut for the first two years.  After that, if things don't work out, he can be moved on without significant penalty. 

By way of comparison, consider that Jevon Kearse has the same $4 million dead money figure this year that Asante would have in 2010.  That didn't stop the Eagles from cutting him and having the cap room to sign Asante.

The final note here is that Samuel is only 27 years old.  The Eagles have not structured this deal as one of those typical "phony money" NFL contracts.  His cap numbers are relatively constant throughout and if he continues to play at a high level, there's no reason to believe they can't afford this -- especially considering the recent/predicted growth of the NFL salary cap, which under the new labor deal has been growing about $7 million a year.

Comments

[Andrew]

Is the $7M roster bonus for next year even guaranteed? That would be highly unusual, wouldn't it?

The deal is effectively 2 years for $23 million.

I'd be really surprised if he ever sees the last $20 million of the contract's final two years. He will be over 30 by then.

[Me]

You're right, the roster bonus for 2009 can't be guaranteed right now, because it would then be prorated over the course of the contract. However, they could have guaranteed future salaries against the bonus or something.

It will all depend on how he plays. The structure of this contract means they have the flexibility to keep him or cut him at the end depending upon how this all works out.