The other day the Vikings signed star safety Harrison Smith to a stunning $64 million contract extension that will likely see Smith end his career as a Viking. Here is the breakdown of the contract from a league source familiar with the details of the contract.

Smith received $26.379 million in guarantees as part of the extension, $14.179 million of which is guaranteed at signing. The full guarantee consists of Smith’s $1.075 million P5 salary, a $3.525 million roster bonus, and a $9.579 million signing bonus He can also earn to to $300,000 in per game bonuses which was also a part of his prior contract. His salary cap number should be $6.916 million, a savings of about $3.33 million in cap room.

In 2022 Smith has an injury protected $2.95 million P5 and $8 million roster bonus. These will both be fully guaranteed on the 3rd day of the league year in 2022. There is also $100,000 tied to workouts and $500,000 in per game bonuses. His cap figure will be $13.46 million.

In 2023 Smith will earn $14.7 million, $1.25 million of which is guaranteed for injury. He can earn the same $500,000 in per game bonuses and $100,000 in workout salary. His cap figure should be $17.2 million.

In 2024 Smith can earn a salary of $14.45 million, $750,000 in per game bonuses, and $100,000 in workouts for a cap number of $17.2 million.

In the final year of the deal Smith will earn a $17 million salary, up to $1 million in per game bonuses, and $100,000 in workout bonuses. The cap figure will be $18.1 million.

This is a very strong contract for a safety, let alone a safety who will be 33 years old when the extension officially kicks in. Smith’s annual contract value of $16 million ranks second among safeties while his $45.9 million three year cash ranks third. His guarantees are in the top 10 at the position.

Has the Vikings played the contract out and franchise tagged Smith in 2022 it would have cost the team around $12.5 million. Smith will instead earn $15.3 million in new money over that same time frame, almost all of which is earned by next March. If things go sideways for Smith and the Vikings move on before the guarantees kick in they will take on a charge of $7.6 million on the cap and have paid Smith $3.75 million more this year than he was going to earn on his prior contract.

Here are the other players who would be in Smith’s age bracket who signed contracts in the last decade with the contract also adjusted for growth in the cap (using the 2020 salary cap as the basis)

The only player with a contract that would be worth more on an annual basis was Troy Polamalu who was two years younger when his extension would have started. The only player of a comparable age was Devin McCourty who signed for $11.5 million a season just last year.

The safety market has been virtually unchanged for the last few years with just minor growth in the market until the Jamal Adams extension which was signed just a few weeks ago. The Adams extension really should have had zero impact on the Smith deal given the difference in age and the fact that Adams was considered a unique player. Even if you look solely on the three year value, which is the more appropriate measure given Smith’s age, the contract tracks right along with Justin Simmons, who was the highest paid safety in the NFL prior to Adams.

History has not been kind to these signings. Thomas was cut after just one year. Chancellor lasted one new year, all of which was spent on PUP while Jones lasted two new years, the final year landing on IR. Jackson played two years. Polamalu played the contract out and signed one last contract with the Steelers.

If the Vikings were willing to make Smith one of the highest paid safeties in the NFL it does bring into question why they did not just do the contract last season when the market was around $14.5 million. They would have been able to use his two years of salaries as the majority of his guarantee and gotten better cash flow terms. Now Smith is on a much stronger contract, does not have to play on a franchise tag at 33, and has nearly $17 million in new injury protection without having to play a snap in 2021. If I had to guess the Vikings see a benefit in the two year cash flow of $30.6 million, but even that number is a few million more than having to use two franchise tags and I cant recall too many players at that age where the tag was a consideration in back to back seasons.

This contract will now set the stage for Tyrann Mathieu of the Chiefs to seek a mega extension with more data points to ask for the moon. This contract by no means is anything like the funny money contract the Chiefs did with Travis Kelce last year which was a model contract for an older player and one of the most team friendly contracts in the NFL.

In any event this is a great contract for Smith. He earns more at every turn of this contract than he likely would have if he simply played this year out and went into free agency or wound up tagged by the Vikings. Minnesota does continue a track record of avoiding too much conflict with veteran players when it comes to contracts but many of those deals have not worked out for the team. They will need to hope that Smith is able to give them a strong three years and avoid the age related breakdown that impacts so many superstars, while also fielding a stronger team than they had last year as a 7 win team featuring 30 year olds is not a winning strategy in the NFL.

The cloud continues to hang over Deshaun Watson and the Texans as the NFL seems to be leaving everyone twisting in the wind with no decision on Watson’s potential violations of the personal conduct policy and now the Texans may just be sitting their $39 million a year QB this year according to Aaron Wilson.

Texans are prepared to have Deshaun Watson on the 53-man roster and inactive every week, according to multiple league sources. Watson, who has issued a standing trade request with no deal imminent, would be paid his $10.54 million salary

— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) August 30, 2021

I am not exactly sure if this plan by the Texans would hold up if Watson were to challenge his deactivation as long as the NFL says it is ok for him to continue to play in the NFL. A deactivation of Watson in response to his conduct off the field would seemingly be looked at as a conduct punishment. The NFL and NFLPA agreed to the CBA to not allowed deactivation for any significant period of time for what would seem to be discipline related issues.

(xvii) Conduct detrimental to Club—maximum fine of an amount equal to one
week’s salary and/or suspension without pay for a period not to exceed four (4) weeks.
This maximum applies without limitation to any deactivation of a player in response to
player conduct (other than a deactivation in response to a player’s on-field playing ability),
and any such deactivation, even with pay, shall be considered discipline subject to the
limits set forth in this section. The Non-Injury Grievance Arbitrator’s decision in Terrell
Owens (Nov. 23, 2005) is thus expressly overruled as to any Club decision to deactivate a
player in response to the player’s conduct.

The Owens situation referenced here is when he had his famous clash with the Eagles in 2005 and the Eagles suspended him and then basically told him to go away for the year rather than continue as a member of the team. That decision by the Eagles was upheld back in 2005 but the NFLPA and NFL overruled that in the 2006 CBA.

Now Watson has stated that he wants a trade from the Texans and he may not want to challenge any deactivation but he has shown up to practice this offseason and as far as I know has not refused to play. Had he refused to practice he likely would have opened himself up to a conduct detrimental suspension which would void the remaining $82.54 million in guarantees. My guess is if this is the path that the Texans are taking the plan would be to find a trade partner within the first four weeks of the season unless they have a reason to state that Watson has an injury that needs more treatment and that the deactivation is injury related.

The fault of this situation really falls on the NFL who have refused to put Watson on the exempt list despite what looks like mounting evidence of multiple violations of the conduct policy. It has left the Texans in limbo with Watson’s contract and put them in a difficult position with what to do with him.

The Jets were in desperate need for a pass rusher following the injury to Carl Lawson and found one in Shaq Lawson, acquiring him from the Texans for a 6th round draft pick. This is the second time this year that Lawson has been traded making his journey and contract to be one of the oddest in recent memory in the NFL. The trade will again bring into the spotlight the way the Texans have run their organization this offseason with seemingly seat of your pants decision making that has cost millions along the way.

Lawson signed a surprising three year, $30 million contract with the Dolphins in March of 2020 that had $21 million in guaranteed salary. The Dolphins, who also seemed to have a short term focus on their free agent signings in 2020, turned around and traded Lawson to the Texans after paying Lawson $13 million of the contract in 2020.

The Texans acquired Lawson and a 6th round pick in March of 2021 by trading away veteran linebacker Benardrick McKinney and a 7th round pick . The move was essentially a salary dump for the Dolphins who were able to get out of $8 million in guaranteed salary for Lawson by taking on McKinney’s non-guaranteed contract which the Dolphins negotiated down to $3 million after the trade. The Texans could have cut McKinney for the same amount on the cap as in a trade and not taken on the Lawson contract.

The Texans continued to be bullish on the Lawson deal by renegotiating the contract for salary cap relief soon after they made the trade. The team prepaid $7.01 million of Lawson’s salary for the year and added two void years to the contract to reduce the cap hit from $8.6 million to $3.25 million. The Texans also would pay Lawson a $100,000 workout bonus this year.

While converting salary to a bonus to facilitate a trade is common it usually is part of the negotiation of the trade. By being so bullish on the player they already took care of that for the Jets and still only received a 6th round pick in return for that $7 million. Had the team focused on using another player for cap relief and kept Lawson’s contract as is they may not have had to pay anything on the trade and certainly no more than $3.5 million.

For the Jets this is a big win. They get a player who was seen as a $10 million a year player just one year ago for a base value of $990,000 in 2021. Lawson can earn up to $2 million in additional incentives this through sacks. $500,000 count on the cap this year since Lawson had 4 sacks last season. Per a league source he triggers an additional $750,000 if he has 8 sacks and another $750,000 if he has 12 sacks. His cap number for the Jets this year will be $1.49 million. In 2022 Lawson has a $9 million salary, none of which is guaranteed. Releasing him would cost nothing.

The Lawson payment breakdown will wind up being $13.5 million from the Dolphins for one season of play in 2020 and $7.11 million from the Texans for taking part in their offseason program and training camp while the Jets just pay him $990,000. Lawson will count for $2.67 million in dead money for Miami in 2021, $1.85 million in dead money for Houston in 2021, and $5.28 million in dead money for Houston in 2022.

Robby Anderson signed a two year extension worth $29.5 million to remain with the Carolina Panthers and the contract will create just under $3.2 million in cap room for the Panthers this season. Per a league source with knowledge of the contract, Anderson’s cap number will drop from $12 million to $8.82 million in 2021, giving them the third most cap space in the NFL this season which can either be used for extensions or carried over to help offset a more difficult cap position next year.

The contract is a solid deal for Anderson who locks in a nice guarantee on another short term deal. Anderson will earn an additional $4.5 million this year than he would have under his prior contract as part of the extension. Anderson’s base salary this year will be $990,000 while receiving an $11.51 million signing bonus.

In 2022 Anderson will have a $10 million salary of which $8 million is fully guaranteed. In addition there is a $2.8 million roster bonus. Given the large $8 million guarantee that other $4.8 million in non-guaranteed compensation is virtually guaranteed unless Anderson was to completely fall apart this year. His cap number in 2022 will be $16.8 million and the cost to cut $15.6 million, basically making the June 1 the option if things went way south.

Nothing is guaranteed in 2023 and Anderson will carry a $15.8 million cap charge that year.

In many ways the contract basically works out to a nearly guaranteed one year extension worth $17.5 million, which is the number of the franchise tag in 2022. While Anderson has been a good player most would not put him on the franchise tier. For the Panthers to gain value they need him to finish out the entire contract to get the $14.75 million average which is more in line with Anderson’s market.

Anderson struggled in his run in free agency in 2020, signing a two year contract worth $20 million. The gamble on himself paid off for Anderson who effectively wound up on a four year deal worth $49.5 million with $30.5 million guaranteed and $37.5 million in earnings from 2020 to 2022. That puts him a bit over what Corey Davis earned in free agency this past year.

Many players opt for the one year prove it contract but this two year strategy may also prove effective for players who are not considered elite talents like Anderson. Of free agent receivers this year only Kenny Golladay received a stronger deal than Anderson so it would be hard to imagine a better outcome had he gone the one year route in 2020.

Carolina has about $19 million in projected cap space in 2022 but with such a large carryover number should wind up close to $40 million which would put them in the top third of the league. That number should help them continue their rebuilding process which at the moment is tied to Sam Darnold who will look for an extension in the offseason if he has a good season as the Panthers QB.

After much back and forth the past few weeks, Jamal Adams and the Seattle Seahawks have agreed to a four year contract worth $70 million in new money that will tie Adams to Seattle through 2025. The contract has a maximum value of $72 million and $38 million in guarantees.

The $17.5 million annual value on the contract is a raise of 14.7% over the Justin Simmons contract signed earlier this year. As we had discussed earlier this type of raise would be somewhat in line with some of the more traditional market movers at various positions and represents a pretty fair value for Adams either on an extension or as a free agent. Adams $38 million in guarantees will also be a record for safety, surpassing the $35 million guarantee for Simmons by $3 million.

This was about as high as the Seahawks could go on an offer within the current framework of their team and the league. This was a much better move for Adams than playing the franchise tag game and then hoping at 29 there would be a massive market for him in free agency. The only question is why this took this long as a deal like this should have been finalized long ago.

I would expect this contract to help pull the safety market up with Jessie Bates of the Bengals likely the top player to immediately benefit, I would also anticipate that Tyrann Mathieu of the Chiefs will now have a target price of $18 million a year on a new contract. As we get more details of the contract we will update Adams cap figures.

Just a few days ago the Seahawks and Jamal Adams were reportedly somewhat close to a deal, but according to Mike Florio of PFT is sounds as if the two sides are back to square one with the Seahawks threatening two franchise tags and Adams supposedly saying he won’t be tagged as a safety.

The Seahawks have very real leverage when it comes to the contract talks with safety Jamal Adams. Barring a long-term deal, they can pay him $9.86 million and then apply the franchise tag twice. With long-term talks bogged down, that’s what they currently plan to do.
Adams, we’re told, has a strategy of his own to deploy if that happens. Per a league source, Adams would file a grievance arguing that he’s a linebacker not a safety for franchise tag purposes.

This is a bit of an interesting wrinkle but one that comes with a great deal of risk. My personal estimate (it differs from the OTC page) is that the safety tag will cost $12.438 million in 2022 which would put a second tag at $14.926 million. The linebacker number is much higher since it primarily is based on the salaries of edge rushers. The linebacker tag is in the ballpark of $18 million in 2022 which would lead to a tag of $21.6 million in 2023.

The salary differential is gigantic as the safety tag is likely well under what Seattle is offering in new money from 2021 to 2023 while the linebacker tag is probably similar to or a bit more than what Seattle is currently offering in money to Adams. But can Adams successfully challenge the designation?

Few players have been successful in getting a position changed in the NFL. The most notable case was between Jimmy Graham and the Saints when Graham argued that he plays wide receiver in the Saints offense. The argument at the time was that he spent a majority of the time split out wide and wasn’t really used as an in-line blocker the way a traditional tight end was. As far as arguments go it was a decent one but one he lost with the nod being given to the Saints having used the tight end designation since day one.

There have been many grievances filed at linebacker with players looking to be designated a defensive end rather than a linebacker because in the past the DE was paid more than a linebacker. More often than not close calls there were settled between the team and the player with a tweener salary being paid with the two sides splitting the tag value of the two positions on a one year contract. Last year Shaq Barrett did seem to win a grievance contesting the designation, though I dont know if that was a grievance decision or the Bucs stopping their challenge. There have been others who have successfully been recognized as DEs after being designated at interior d-line for the option years.

Adams situation is more reminiscent of the Graham situation than the others, in my opinion. He has basically always been a safety and Seattle’s argument is that this is how we deploy a safety in the defense. I think this is far more subjective, like the tight end, than the LB/Edge situation where rushing the passer at the LOS lined up wide is often the role of the DE.

I think if Adams is going to challenge the designation and go to war with the Seahawks over it, it would make sense for him to challenge his option designation as a safety. To accept the safety designation in 2021 while fighting against it in 2022 is a harder one to accept. Players like Leonard Williams for example always challenged their positional designation even as a rookie. To me that at least sets a precedent for how you view yourself and probably opens up the window to gathering more information as to how you can better challenge it the following year.

The strategy itself is risky for Adams. If Adams fails to win a grievance in 2022 he could be looking at giving up three years of his career before getting a chance at a big money deal. Adams would be 29 at that point and probably will no longer be considered an elite talent in free agency. The market will have increased by then as well but the question is by how much?

I question how much Adams would actually earn as a free agent. Most, but not all, big free agent spenders are bad football teams. Given Adams’ exit from New York I think those teams would stay away in free agency. Even if he has no intention of signing with one of those teams it would eliminate him from using them as a negotiating ploy when trying to do a deal with a team like the Chiefs.

The safety market has also been very hit or miss in free agency. It has been minor growth with Landon Collins 7.7% market increase being the big jump in the last few years. That would equate to a deal for Adams in the ballpark of $16.5M a year, or about $1M a year less than the Seahawks are currently offering. Adams may be able to sell himself as a special player ala CJ Mosley a few years ago but even then you would be looking at a contract around $18.5M a season, give or take a bit. Waiting two years for that kind of deal while playing 2022 and 2023 for $27 million is a big risk for not much reward. It is a different calculation if he wins a grievance and earns nearly $40M on the tag across two years.

Some will say the Seahawks lost this the minute they traded for him without an extension. It was clearly a mistake on their part to not do an extension at that time and I think overall the trade is a clear failure since they did not do any better with him on the roster last year than they did without him on the roster the year before. That said Seattle would have the ability, if they can designate him as a safety, to keep Adams for four seasons at a cost of around $41 million from 2020 to 2023. That is not a bad outcome.

The bad outcomes are when the tag provisions are so big that it becomes difficult to tag a player. The Rams may have had a hard time tagging Ramsey two times. The Texans may have had a hard time tagging Tunsil two times. Seattle would have no such problem tagging Adams two times and I would think it is a high probability they would win a grievance against him. I would also think that if they did not want to deal with Adams on the tag they could probably trade him for a late 1 or 2, which would offset a lot of the loss in the trade.

To turn around and pay Adams $20 million a season as the next great linebacker would, in my opinion, make that trade far worse than the other options even if the optics of the extension and a happy player are much better than the alternative of sniping between the two sides for the next three seasons. I have to think that is what the Seahawks are thinking here and with a front office that has been there for ages they probably can deal with the “no extension” fall out better than most would be able to in their position.

With the main slate of preseason games about to get underway and teams begin looking at their strengths and weaknesses I wanted to take a quick look at the top players who were released this offseason and signed to another team. More often than not street free agents do not make the big impact that some expect but it is always a fun “what if” game to see which teams may have made the biggest mistakes for their decision to cut the players.

Here is the list of the top 15 players who were cut and then signed with another team.

Of all the names on the list Adoree’ Jackson might be the most interesting, but mainly from the Giants perspective. Usually, the contract value for a SFA is considered a “bargain” but here it clearly was not with the Giants seeing Jackson as a cornerstone player. If he plays well and the Titans struggle in the secondary it will look bad for them but this is the one name that is more about the signing team than cutting team.

The Bears cut Kyle Fuller and Charles Leno due to cap concerns and these may be two of the most watched players for this year. Chicago is expected to compete for the playoffs and made the decision to purge these two key positions in order to keep cap compliant. Their cap was constrained by using the franchise tag on Allen Robinson and one would think at least one of the two would be on the team if they had extended Robinson.

Minnesota also had two players on the list with the primary name being Riley Reiff. Reiff had a good season last year for Minnesota, but they had pretty much made the decision last summer to move on from Reiff when they strong armed him into a pay cut in the summer so they could trade for Yannick Ngakoue. Ngakoue only lasted a few weeks before being traded out but this put a relationship with Reiff at a bad point where extending him even if they wanted to was likely not an option, so they needed to cut him.

The Saints have needs at both corner and wide receiver but had to cut Janoris Jenkins and Emmanuel Sanders because of salary cap issues. Both players had some guaranteed salary in their contracts but the amount of that was minor compared to the salary cap savings.