Portis Agrees to $51M Deal With Redskins

Was Barry Sanders undersized? Emmitt Smith? Shannahan is overconfident and I think he'll regret letting Portis go. From what I've read, a lot of Denver fans are unhappy about this trade. As for the Skins, I support making a major salary cap commitment to a stud RB, but not for a CB, even one as good as Champ Bailey. Portis will be the focal point of the offense. A CB is almost never the focal point of the D, unless his name is Deion Sanders and the year is 1995. Under Gregg Williams, our D will be better this year minus Champ.

The new contract underscores the FO's faith in Portis. Now he won't come in with a bad attitude (hopefully). Still don't know why we had to give up a second rounder though.

I don't think you can really judge the contract until you see the details of it. Is it heavily backloaded? Just knowing that it's 8 years, $50 million isn't enough

Excellent point smootsmack. It's hard to argue that Portis isn't one of the premier backs in football, and probably the best back in the NFC, now. This contract may look like a killer, but understand that the bonus money is tiered - which means that we aren't on the hook for $17 million out of the gate. With tiered bonuses, and backloaded salaries, the only big numbers are the ones the agents brag about.

I don't think you can really judge the contract until you see the details of it. Is it heavily backloaded? Just knowing that it's 8 years, $50 million isn't enough

Sure it is....the details will give us a better idea of whether its backloaded or not, but paying 6.5 million a year for a back that was to make less than a million over the next two seasons (he said he wouldn't hold out of camp) seems a little stupid. What happenned to all of our leverage? It went right out the window and we handed out the biggest contract for a RB in NFL history.

Hey guys, you think Portis will forget what we did for him when it's time to restructure? One thing the skins have done a great job at is keeping up with the salary cap. Portis knows that our FO has faith in him and he will play his guts out. When it comes down to us needing cash room he'll re-work his deal.

I hope you're right. Portis seems like a great back, but I'm think he values money more than respect from our FO. Maybe I'm wrong.

The guys on ESPN News were saying that we need to see to details of the contract. Mort thinks it's structured to be Cap friendly, like Brunnell's.

But I still think it's too much.

Yeah, I dont think we need to jump to conclusions until we hear the details of the contract. Who on here is our salary cap expert, I have seen a few great posts analyzing the cap...anybody want to take the first stab at this for us?

I'm going to agree with that. I dont think we can really worry about it until we see the actual contract. If its heavly backloaded and his production declines, then we cna release him without a huge penlty, am I right?