actual money=signing bonus? Correct? They are guaranteed that once they sign the contract! Everything else is based upon being on the team and /or performance. If we cut a player, then we are still charged his remaining signing bonus, how much is still determined by when we cut him, correct?
Using Dwill, if we cut him.......then we still owe him what's left of his signing bonus, but we are off the hook for base salary! So, then Dwill signs with another team and will be paid by that team while getting the remaining portion of his signing bonus here. Right?
Now, I would prefer to use Beason as an example. Someone explain how we could have him restructure without taking an actual/guaranteed and base salary cut while making his deal cap friendly?
More or less. Yes the signing bonus is fully guaranteed upon the signing of the contract, so if the guy is cut immediately, like what the Bengals did with Antonio Bryant a few years ago, he keeps the bonus. The non-guaranteed portion is there as long as the team doesn't terminate the contract.
Now a lot of contracts have what is called "offset language". Meaning if the player takes another contract after getting cut, the team doesn't have to pay them the remainder of the bonus money (the cap hit still takes place. We are just talking about actual, physical money) that the new contract covers. So that makes it harder for players to "double dip" like you were talking about. Plus free agency being what it is, I'm guessing a player would like to keep money in hand rather than try to go get another contract a majority of the time.
Now for Beason, the team would ask him to renegotiate the cap figure with some incentives put into the contract like Thomas Davis had. Beason has only gotten 10 million actual dollars of his contract right now. So the team could make him a June first cut and spread the cap hit over two seasons and still get a little cap relief. While Beason has basically lost 23 million dollars in the transaction, and the team is slightly better off cap wise. Advantage team.
But with a renegotiation, he'll turn down a few million, guarantee a few more of the non guaranteed money later on, and earn all of his non-guaranteed money for this season. If everything works out and he comes back healthy, he could only loose the 4-5 million that he agrees to leave on the table instead of half the contract if he gets cut.
I'm sorry for that being wordy, but this is wordy stuff.
