Some details on Russell Wilson guarantees

[haroldseattle]

Seahawks did really good on this contract.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/russell-wi ... 29141.html

Here's the part that's interesting.

2015 — $31.7 million ($31 million signing bonus, $700,000 salary) fully guaranteed at signing.
2016 — $12.3 million, becomes guaranteed if still on the team February 26.
2017 — $12.6 million, becomes guaranteed if still on the team on the fifth day of the 2017 waiver period.
2018 — $15.5 million, $4.9 million becomes guaranteed if still on the team on the fifth day of the 2017 waiver period.
2019 — $17 million, not guaranteed.

To put it another way. While most in the media reported this as a four-year, $87.6 million contract, here is how we would report it in just about any other sport:

Russell Wilson's new deal is really a ONE-YEAR, $31.7 MILLION CONTRACT WITH FOUR YEARS OF TEAM OPTIONS.

 

[DavidSeven]

The huge signing bonus protects him, though. His dead money hits over the next three years are fairly massive. Thus, it would make little sense to cut him because they wouldn't save much on the cap by doing so. Cutting him next year would actually cost them cap space, and they save nothing by cutting him in 2017. He's also set to make more cash in the first 3 years of his extension than any player in NFL history (including Aaron Rodgers). By the time it would actually make sense from a cap perspective to let Wilson go (assuming his performance went way, way down, which is unlikely), he will have already pocketed $55-70M.

 

[haroldseattle]

The huge signing bonus protects him, though. His dead money hits over the next three years are fairly massive. Thus, it would make little sense to cut him because they wouldn't save much on the cap by doing so. Cutting him next year would actually cost them cap space, and they save nothing by cutting him in 2017. He's also set to make more cash in the first 3 years of his extension than any player in NFL history (including Aaron Rodgers). By the time it would actually make sense from a cap perspective to let Wilson go (assuming his performance went way, way down, which is unlikely), he will have already pocketed $55-70M.

I highly doubt the Seahawks would cut him, but it is nice that these guarantees are not set in stone. If you ever go to a site that includes fans from teams across the NFL, the first words were "wow what a huge guarantee " from non Seahawks fans.

 

[kearly]

I like the topic, but like DavidSeven I think there is hidden context worth considering.

The 'team option' aspect only really helps Seattle if they HAVE to get rid of him after we find out he's the next Aaron Hernandez or Ray Rice, etc. But barring such an extremely toxic scenario, the Seahawks would probably tolerate years of poor performances from Wilson before cutting bait, the same way that the Bears have for Jay Cutler.

So yeah, Wilson's contract protects the team from a few nightmare scenarios, but there's a 99.9999999999999% chance that Wilson will end up seeing most of his "guaranteed" money.

It is basically unheard of for a franchise QB to be cut. Even mediocre QBs on big deals usually see all the money, guaranteed or not.

And if anything, I expect Russell to be one of the best QBs in the NFL over the life of this new contract. Some day we will laugh that people ever thought he was overpaid.