Now We Wait On McNabb

Copious coverage this morning (and last night, guess I was slacking and watching too much basketball) on the new McNabb deal.  Unfortunately, the few numbers that have leaked out so far don't tell us much. 

ESPN's Michael Smith takes the new two-year total up to $24.5 million.  So we can be pretty sure that's the good news from the McNabb camp's perspective.  But we still don't know the structure, how much goes to using up this year's cap space, and how much of next year's money is really guaranteed.  When we do know that, we'll have a better sense of what this all means.

By the way, I wanted to pass along an email I got early this morning from shlynch.  He has some early thoughts, even without the numbers:

So of course the deal is announced while I am leaving for vacation. It will be interesting to see terms of course -- we agree that it is probably a big cap hit in 09 and less in 10. But the 10 is interesting, because that could be the part that ultimately provides the extension cushion. Remember that you can't renegotiate for a change in cap hit for existing years within 12 months of the last renegotiation. To the extent that they hope to do the extension during this season, the 2010 has to provide the soft underbelly to allow some significant restructuring. In fact, that may be the real impetus for the raise.

(If that's not all clear to you, go here and here to brush up on your capology.  And yes, he's still pushing the extension for McNabb sooner rather than later.  The current Boston sports optimism must be rubbing off on him.)

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Lastly, kudos to Les Bowen for this prediction yesterday:

Just thinking out loud here, with agent Fletcher Smith flying in Thursday for the award dinner, and McNabb presumably headed back out to Arizona pretty soon, now that OTAs are over, wouldn't today be an ideal time to announce such a thing?