Ravens defensive tackle Justin Madubuike cashed in big today, signed a massive four year, $98 million contract extension with the Ravens that includes $75.5 million in guarantees. Pro Football Talk had the breakdown of the contract and here is how it stacks up in the interior defensive line market.

The $24.5 million per year average value ranks 2^nd at the position to only Aaron Donald, who really has never been valued as an interior player by the Rams but in line with the Edge market. The contract is worth $500,000 more per year than Quinnen Williams and $1 million per year more than Jeffery Simmons. Of the top six contracts at the position Madubuike is the only player who was not a first round draft selection and he is one of just two player in the top 10 not selected in the first round.

The guarantees are record setting. The $75.5 million injury guarantee is $9.5 million more than Williams $66 million guarantee. The $48.5 million full guarantee is about $800,000 more than Williams received. The full guarantee is $2.5 million more than Daron Payne received as a franchise player and tops the market of new guaranteed salary. The injury guarantee is $10 million more than Payne’s.

Here is the running cash flow breakdown compared to the top 10 players at the position

This is a break in structure from what the Ravens have done with many of their players where the Ravens have often offered massive cash flows in the first year of the contract in return for a discount of sorts on the overall value of the contract. That did not happen here as Madubuike’s first year salary will be tied for 5^th at the position and right in line with the market.

In year two we see the bigger shift where he jumps everyone other than Donald. This is a pretty significant jump compared to the other players and in my estimation was driven due to the franchise tag resulting in a $48.6 million payout over two years if applied a second time. The Ravens likely needed to be a certain number over that to make it worthwhile to give up free agency in two years.

He outpaces the non-Donald market by $5 million through 2026 before coming down in 2027 to deliver the final APY. That is a strong structure for the player as they will earn significantly more than their peers through three years and then be in a position to ask for an extension, assuming they continue to play well, before the lower valued year kicks in.  

The guarantee structure also works in his favor. He will have his first three contract years fully guaranteed by March of 2025, so he is a lock to earn the full $75.5 million guarantee. Williams needs to get to the third year of the contract to lock in more of his salary as does Simmons. Payne, who was in a comparable situation as a tagged player, also needs to get to the third year to lock in all of the guarantee, though Payne will have a high percentage of his third year salary guaranteed by start of year two.

Despite the fact that the annual value on this is just a shade higher than Williams’ contract with the Jets this contract really should go a long way toward propelling the interior market much closer to the Donald number. The cash flows on this are a big step up in year two and year three from Williams and set new thresholds for Christian Wilkins and maybe Chris Jones to work off of.

It is actually a surprise to me that Baltimore would do this contract. It took them a long time to finalize the Lamar Jackson contract last year and as I mentioned earlier does not hit the same kind of structure we have seem the Ravens do with their other players. Maybe part of it was driven by not wanting to get bogged down the way they were with Jackson and having to deal with constant questions about why a deal wasn’t done. Maybe they were worried that a team would go nuts with Wilkins and just make this deal cost more if they waited. Maybe they just needed the cap room. Whatever it was this is a great contract for Madubuike and one that every interior defender, especially those who do not carry a first round grade, should be celebrating tonight.

The Bears and Jaylon Johnson, their franchise player, finalized a contract that would make Johnson one of the top 10 compensated corners in the NFL. The contract which will average $19 million dollars a season carries a guarantee of $54 million of which $43.8 million is fully guaranteed at signing. Jordan Schultz of Bleacher report had the most details on the contract so far and I thought we could use those numbers to see where the contract ranks.

The annual value of the contract will make Johnson the 7th highest paid corner in the NFL, behind Jaire Alexander, Denzel Ward, Jalen Ramsey, Marlon Humphrey, Marshon Lattimore, and Trevon Diggs. He will earn $28 million in the first year of the contract which is 8th in the NFL behind those same names as well as Tre’Davious White. He will earn $60 million in the first three years of the contract per Adam Schefter and that number is tied for 5th in the league and the most for any cornerback not on a five year contract. In my opinion that is probably the number that drove the deal home as it gets Johnson to the coveted $20M/year number on the three year metric.

The guarantees on the contract are strong especially given the length of the contract. The $54 million ranks 6th in the NFL and 5th if valued on a per year basis. As a percentage of the contract value it ranks 1st. My guess would be that this does not fully vest to a full guarantee until 2026, but that is just a guess.

The full guarantee is 3rd in the NFL putting Johnson just ahead of Ramsey. Considering the length of the contract it is a massive number. The full guarantee works out to $10.95 million per season. The next closest player (White) is at $9.2 million. This represents 57% of the contract’s total value which is huge. My feeling is that they were willing to trade max value for more guarantees to get the contract done.

Now one can argue if using guarantees per year does or does not matter. For this particular position I would lean more towards “does not matter” only because the cornerbacks often fade quicker than other positions and in many cases the 5th year is meaningless for the team and player. However there are always exceptions and getting a four year contract as a player is certainly preferable to a five year one especially when the team is willing to do guarantees that mimic those of the longer term contract.

The one thing about this contract that will be criticized is that this did not jump in value even though he was a franchise player. Usually the annual value for a franchise player is at least one million per year higher than the tag value and in most cases it is a few million higher rather than falling as it did here. There have been a few exceptions- Jason Pierre-Paul and Jarvis Landry are the two most recent- and usually indicates a player who isn’t a traditional franchise tag candidate. I do think Johnson, who was nearly traded last year, fits that bill and in this case the tag was only used because Johnson and the Bears were close to a deal but it just needed to get over the finish line.

The Buffalo Bills finished their big day of salary cap maneuvering by getting Von Miller to agree to a pretty big pay cut according to ESPN’s Field Yates.

The Bills and pass rusher Von Miller agreed to a renegotiated contract, per source.

The deal has a base value of $8.855M in 2024, with the chance to make up to $20M with incentives (up from $17.5M under the old terms).

The move saves Buffalo $8.645M in 2024 salary cap space.

— Field Yates (@FieldYates) March 6, 2024

The move represents a major pay cut for Miller. Miller was going to earn $17.5 million on his original contract, so he took a $8.654 million reduction in salary. Originally, Miller had $10.71 million fully guaranteed with the balance of his salary becoming guaranteed next week. The status of these guarantees were in question due to Miller being arrested and charged with 3rd degree assault and seeing that he will not even earn the original guarantee tells me that either the Bills voided the guarantee or Miller was possibly going to settle which could create a scenario where league discipline would void the guarantee before the season began.

Ian Rapoport has more details on the renegotiated contract including the fact that Miller has a $1.5 million base salary and received a $7 million signing bonus. He can also now earn up to $20 million for the year if he can earn certain incentives. (Edit: This signing bonus is apparently a roster bonus that will not prorate so everything written after this has been updated from a previous post assuming it was a signing bonus)

While there are no details on the future years of the contract, the new cap charges for Miller should be $15.154 million in 2024, which represents a gain of $8.645 million in cap space for the Bills. Miller’s dead money for 2025 will remain at $15.417 million

Miller had originally signed a gigantic six year, $120 million contract in free agency with the Bills in 2022. It was an unheard of number for a player who was going to be 33 and last produced double digit sacks in 2018. Miller finished the 2023 season with 0 sacks and just 22% playing time.

It has been a busy day in Buffalo as Adam Schefter has announced two more releases from the team:

Bills also are releasing WR/returner Deonte Harty and C Mitch Morse.

Buffalo opens another $12.8M in salary cap space with the two cuts.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 6, 2024

Morse had been the Bills starting center for the last five seasons after signing with Buffalo as a free agent in 2019. His career with the Bills had some ups and downs with the team negotiating a pay cut with him in 2021 only to turn around one year later and sign him to an extension worth nearly $10 million a season. Morse’s salary cap number this year was $11.5 million, the 3rd highest salary cap charge among centers in the NFL. He will leave the team with $3 million in dead money and $8.5 million in salary cap savings.

Harty signed with the Bills as a free agent in 2023. He played last year with a cap number just under $4 million but that would grow to just under $6 million this year. His release saves $4.315 million in cap room, a number that likely made him expendable.

The Bills still have a ways to go to be salary cap compliant for 2024, but they are inching closer with each move. They are currently 5th in the NFL in dead money with just under $24 million.

In what was likely a salary cap driven move the Bills have released safety Jordan Poyer. Poyer started 16 games for the Bills in 2023 and was an All Pro in 2021. The Bills signed Poyer to a two year, $12.5 million contract in 2023 after his prior contract with the Bills expired. Poyer’s salary cap number was $7.72 million and the cap strapped Bills will save $5.72 million in cap room with his release. Poyer will leave the Bills with $2 million in dead money.

Poyer will join a crowded list of free agent safeties in 2024. The group of UFAs at the position was very deep to begin with and now Poyer joins a list of former stars that have been released including Jamal Adams, Kevin Byard, Eddie Jackson, Quandre Diggs, Rayshawn Jenkins, and Tracy Walker.

The Seattle Seahawks had a busy Tuesday, officially releasing three players, S Jamal Adams, S Quandre Diggs, and TE Will Dissly, all of whom were expected to be cut this year.  We’ll take a quick look at what these moves mean for the Seahawks salary cap in 2024.

Adams tenure with the Seahawks mercifully comes to an end after four seasons with Seattle. Seattle traded two first round picks for Adams in 2020, a trade that many were critical of right from the start. A year after the trade the Seahawks signed Adams to a top of the market $17.5 million per year extension.

 Adams never really fit in with the type of defense Seattle played and his Seahawks run was littered with injuries. He finished each of his three extension seasons on injured reserve and only appeared in 34 games in his four year run.  

The contract got away from Seattle and became a mess to fit in their salary cap. The team used $42.3 million in prorated money to deal with cap issues while only using $4.08 million in base salary over that same time frame. It led to Adams having a bloated cap figure this year of $26.9 million and a massive dead money figure of $20.83 million. This dead money number is record for a safety by $7.47 million.  They only create $6.1 million by cutting him.

The team had a vision that was unique at the time that having two high priced safeties would be a difference maker, signing Quandre Diggs to a $13 million a year contract two years after signing Adams. Diggs had a far better run than Adams, making the Pro Bowl in 2022, but he fell victim to age (he will be 31) and salary cap considerations due to $21.263 million cap number.

The Diggs contract got away from the Seahawks in a similar manner to the Adams one. Here the team used $24.625 million in prorated bonuses to $3.375 million in salary. This left the team with $10.262 million in dead money despite him only completing two years of his three year contract. This dead money is 3^rd all time among safeties. They did save $11 million in cap room.

 Overall, the dead money between Diggs and Adams will account for $31.09 million in 2024,  a number that is higher than all but two teams have allocated to all of the safeties on their roster this year. From a historical perspective this is $13.33 million more than any team ever had allocated to dead money on safeties in a single year.

Dissly had signed a three year, $24 million contract to stay in Seattle in 2022, a really surprising number for a player who never had more than 262 receiving yards in a season. He had 521 yards in the two years he completed on the contract and his playing time dropped to under 40% this year. Dissly had a $10 million cap charge and will now count for $3.1 million in dead money.

The Seahawks ended up opening up about $24 million in cap room with the three releases. They now have $36.22 million in cap space for 2024, which ranks 16^th in the NFL. They now rank 1^st in dead money with $34.4 million. 

The franchise tag deadline has come and gone and we had eight players receive the franchise tag this year and one player receive the transition tag. Here are the list of the franchise players and the one transition player along with their tenders for the year.

It is important to note that until these players sign their tender they still have the same rights as any free agent in the NFL. They have permission to talk to other teams and to sign an offer sheet with another team. However, the if they do sign with another team the player’s current team has the right to match the offer or receive two first round draft picks as compensation if the player was franchised.  Teams can also work out other trade packages provided the value is no more than those two first round picks to execute a sign and trade agreement. The players are not considered under contract to the teams and are currently under no obligation to report to the team for any reason.

If the player signs the tender the salary listed above will be fully guaranteed for the year. The player would then be under contract to the team and have to report for mandatory offseason activities. They could also be traded after signing the tender without giving a team permission. If the player does not sign the tender it can be rescinded at any time though that rarely happens. Teams have until mid July to work out a long term contract with these players.

The big winners today were the players who were not franchised. The big names on that list are Christian Wilkins of the Dolphins, Kamren Curl of the Commanders, Xavier McKinney of the Giants, and Michael Onwenu of the Patriots. Each player will be free and clear to go and negotiate with all 31 other teams with no compensation attached to signing those players.