Rumor: Owens to Raiders for Porter (x-post from OOT)

[Soul Daddy]

Is it automatically spread over the life of the contract? Can a team that projects itself to be well under the cap, as the Eagles were for at least '02 and '03, just fork over the entire bonus, or a large portion up front to prevent handcuffing themselves to a player?

[Aytumious]

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Is it automatically spread over the life of the contract? Can a team that projects itself to be well under the cap, as the Eagles were for at least '02 and '03, just fork over the entire bonus, or a large portion up front to prevent handcuffing themselves to a player?

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Nope, it automatically applies to the life of the deal, and also in equal amounts. 5 yr deal 10 mil in bonus, 2 mil per year. The players salaries can rise per year, hence the massive backloaded contracts, but the signing bonus is the same every year. Most 5-7 year deals are really 3-4 year deals that are either ended via release or trade or renegotiated so that teams don't have massive 15 million dollar contracts to pay. If a player renegotiates, the bonus from the previous contract still applies and any new bonus is also added on, but the players yearly salary is changed to help the team stay under the cap. It's all quite convoluted.

Also, you can see why TO and other players are pissed since the contracts are basically meaningless and you can get cut at any time and team only has to pay the bonus money; the rest of the money is void. Players want huge bonuses to make up for that, teams don't want to give them out in case the player is a bust, production drops off, demands trade, noncareer ending injury, etc..

[ComeOn]

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Bonus money is spread out over the length of a contract, but it is guaranteed. For instance, I sign a 5 year deal for 20 million with 5 mil as a signing bonus. Each year of the deal I get 1 mil in bonus money plus whatever my salary is. After year 1 I get traded so the remaining 4 mil of bonus money is accelerated and counts against my old teams salary cap. My new team only has to pay the remainder of my salary minus the bonus money.

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Just to clarify, I believe the player actually receives the full signing bonus at the time he signs the contract. The bonus is spread over the life of the contract for salary cap purposes only.

[Aytumious]

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Just to clarify, I believe the player actually receives the full signing bonus at the time he signs the contract. The bonus is spread over the life of the contract for salary cap purposes only.

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That's correct. Not sure why I made that mistake.

[Boris]

I would agree if it was a binding contract. NFL contracts are nothing more than options for a team to hire players. The Eagles have no obligation to pay TO so the way I see it TO has no obligation to show up for work.

[sublime]

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I would agree if it was a binding contract. NFL contracts are nothing more than options for a team to hire players. The Eagles have no obligation to pay TO so the way I see it TO has no obligation to show up for work.

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cmon man, you really don't believe that. even if you do, these players (and their agents) are well aware how NFL contracts work and get as much guaranteed money as possible. its not like this is something new.

lets look at what TO has done in the past year and a half:

-missed filing for free agency
-demands trade
-says he wont report to teams he was traded too (screwing both teams)
-signs a deal with the eagles, that was very fair.
-uses a good season to demand more money

screw him. most players who hold out for a new contract are either doing it after a BREAKOUT season or at the tail end of a rookie deal (richard seymour for example). TO falls into neither of these categories.

he is trash

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
Is it automatically spread over the life of the contract? Can a team that projects itself to be well under the cap, as the Eagles were for at least '02 and '03, just fork over the entire bonus, or a large portion up front to prevent handcuffing themselves to a player?

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They can assign the money to the current year, but then it's not a signing bonus. The Vikings have done this the past few years (like with Antoine Winfield's approx $10m bonus) in order to get their payroll up to the minimum, and it's usually called a roster bonus (or something similar)

[Bulldog]

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Also, if you don't realize that many of the trades bandied about in the media are impossible, especially in the NBA, which has a more complicated trading system, you're just misinformed and gullible.

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Not anymore. Trading became a lot easier in the NBA as of today.

[CollinEstes]

You never know what is going to happen in the NFL or which team will be a surprise. That is why people like it so much because every year people go into the season and they know their team has a legit shot at it because pretty much every team does. You can say the same thing about any other league.

Don't know if this trade will happen but it would be pretty dam entertaining if it does.

[Boris]

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cmon man, you really don't believe that.

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How could I not believe it? It's the way NFL contracts work.

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-missed filing for free agency

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The agent missed the filing deadline, not TO. In my business the lawyer would probably be fired and sued for malpractice if they did something like this. Also, courts and arbritrators will, in general, bend over backwards to make things right for the injured party when a filing deadline is missed becuase of human error.

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-uses a good season to demand more money

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This criticism is especially ridiculous. Do you have any experience at all in the "real world"? Everybody does this, athlete or not. And if you don't your a sucker.