NFL contracts often more about show than real dough
Immediately before the start of training camp, the Raiders and Rich Gannon proudly announced their consummation of a blockbuster deal that was reported as a six-year extension for $54 million. The contract is listed with the NFL as an eight-year deal for a staggering $68 million.
Sixty-eight million Benjamins!
The team had the fortune of pacifying their Pro Bowl signal-caller, ending what had been a somewhat tumultuous offseason in which Gannon skipped some team workouts with the hope of a new deal.
On the surface it seemed like, well, like Gannon's buying for the whole lot of us. But upon further review, we might not be able to head over for that $40 million dinner after all.
Gannon's deal serves as a perfect example of what too many of today's contracts have become: bogus numbers and inflated totals, all for the sake of public relations, recruitment and salary-cap massaging.
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| Rich Gannon will be well paid, but his real income will be nowhere near the announced numbers. (AP) |
It seemed like Gannon threatened, the team caved and more money than an Enron executive lied about was handed over to a 36-year-old quarterback. But that is not actually the case.
How do we get from eight years, $65 million to two for $11 million? Gannon's third-year salary is $7 million, followed by an $8 million salary in 2006 then $1 million increments for the remaining years.
There is not much chance that the Oakland Raiders will pay Gannon a $7 million salary at the ripe old age of 38. They'll either renegotiate for another year or two or release him.
The Chiefs have a similar situation with their starting quarterback, Trent Green. After agreeing to restructure his deal this offseason, Green and Kansas City agreed to a new five-year deal worth $29 million.
The reality? Green has a one-year, $4 million deal. Why? The team is required to pay him a roster bonus to the tune of 8 million clams in March. Thus, either Green agrees to a restructure -- provided he has a solid season -- or he'll leave under the same scenario as his predecessor, Elvis Grbac.
More and more deals are nowhere near their announced value. Teams are releasing news items of huge deals, and fans and media alike are too often dazed by the staggering figures that prove to be no more than window dressing.
So what has happened to the art of the deal? Why are so many numbers now skewed? The reasons are varied.
First is the salary cap. As players' salaries have risen and teams have gotten nice and snug under the cap, teams and agents are required to become more creative to make deals work for the short and long term. Thus, contracts are extended to the maximum number of years in order to prorate bonus money.
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| Trent Green's contract is essentially only a one-year deal now. (AP) |
What good does this do? Appease egos.
Players are able to flaunt to their buddies that they received an astronomical deal, boast to teammates of their value. In locker rooms, value is not judged upon stats or accolades but rather the devilish dollar.
But according to every person interviewed, the primary reason the landscape has changed stems from the representation side of the business. Basically, general managers, capologists and even some agents themselves admit that often the numbers are overblown to assist in future recruiting.
"The agents are using it to broadcast the numbers. They want to be able to say so-and-so signed a nine-year contract for $75 million," said Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi, a veteran of the numbers PR game. "It is so competitive out in their field. When I saw the agents in Indy (at the Combine) they packed a huge ballroom, but there was such a low percentage of agents who actually had a few clients."
Thus, when an agent has a chance, he will often structure the deal to sound as enticing to the common ear as possible. The more "blockbuster deals" an agent can boast, many believe, the more it will help in recruiting potential clients.
"There's no question about that," said Pittsburgh-based agent Ralph Cindrich. "It's used by us more for PR sometimes than anything else. I once tried that when I was doing Mark Stepnoski's deal with the Cowboys a few years ago. We were really working on a two-year deal. But I tried to pump up the back-end numbers and announce it as a five-year deal or something along those lines.
"Mark turned to me and said, 'I've never seen you do that before, why would you do it now?' He was 100 percent right, but that's the trap we fall into. What's really valuable in the contract are the dollars that a player will actually see. Most of the time, nobody sees the back end of these deals where those high salaries are stacked."
The fake numbers might cause some fans to panic when they hear what their team's cap is the next year, but the cap numbers are also often overblown because of these "spiked" numbers.
Take the Raiders, for example. Oakland has several contracts stacked in a similar fashion to the Gannon deal, which is why it appears they are a blank check over next year's cap.
Check out the contract for defensive tackle Sam Adams, a deal reported as a six-year, $32 million contract in the preseason. Based upon the terms, the contract is actually a one-year, $2 million deal.
Oakland is slated to pay Adams a $5 million base salary in 2003 in addition to a $5 million roster bonus. The team will not be able to pay this out and will have to sign him to another contract or release him before paying him his $4 million, $5 million, $6 million and $7 million salaries in the third through sixth years of the deal.
"I think what the Raiders are trying to do is break the record for most money on paper over the cap for the future," joked another long-time GM. "But when you actually analyze their cap for next year, which I did, Bruce (Allen, Raiders senior assistant) can cut it down to nothing immediately. He may be an absurd number over the cap, but he can get it down in five minutes because of how many of their deals are structured."
Even many of the deals that actually pay out a lot of cash are completely bogus.
The Green Bay Packers rewarded quarterback Brett Favre with a 10-year, $101 million contract last year. If there's one guy in this league who deserves to be the Alex Rodriguez of the NFL, it's probably Favre. But the reality is that it will more than likely be no more than a five-year deal for about $60 million less than what it was announced to be.
"All this stuff is purely cosmetics," said the veteran GM. "Nearly every big deal now, you end up doing something with. It's all for show and we just have to play along with the game. To get something you have to give something. We get our type of deal and they get it announced in their way, and everyone gets to make a big deal over it."
