Contract values don’t necessarily matter
There’s a whole bunch of people — media personalities included — that are freaking out over the terms of deals that have yet to be made official.
Sure, dollar values of these free-agent contracts might very well prove to be eye-opening. But in the grand scheme of things, it really isn’t about the value of a contract.
Instead, it’s all about the structure and the percentage of the salary cap used to acquire a player.
Let’s use the often-illustrated rumors of Kirk Cousins potentially landing in San Francisco via a trade with the Redskins. His new deal is expected to pay him $25 million annually, pretty much the same cash Cousins will make under the franchise tag in 2017.
A total of $25 million per season for a two-year starter seems absurd. That’s until we realize it represents 14.9 percent of the 2017 NFL salary cap. It’s the same percentage San Francisco paid to Colin Kaepernick back in 2014. Now, who would you rather have as your quarterback under these figures?
The same can be said about Rick Wagner set to sign a deal with the Detroit Lions that will pay him $9 million annually. Three years ago, that would have been a large figure for a starting right tackle. In 2017, not so much. For the fourth consecutive year, the NFL cap has increased by $10-plus million. With this increase will come an increase in overall contract values.
The second point of emphasis is just as important. Remember when the Oakland Raiders front loaded a bunch of contracts in free agency two years ago? The idea there was to use their vast amount of cap room to create flexibility under the cap moving forward.
This enabled Oakland to get out from under some of these deals in short order, eventually finding the money to land key contributors to their 2016 playoff team this past offseason. It makes perfect sense for teams that might not be in contention mode over the short term.
In reality, we simply have to look at other factors outside of guaranteed cash and total contract value when determining whether a free-agent deal made sense. The NFL’s tampering period on Tuesday and Wednesday magnified this to a T.