Portis Agrees to $51M Deal With Redskins

In order to thoroughly examine the deal, we do need to see how the bonuses are structured (i.e. are bonuses roster bonuses or incentive based bonuses?). I believe that the bonuses are both incentive and roster-based.

However, the total value of the deal is big enough to tell one of two things; either Portis will take about 6 million dollars a year out of the cap, or the deal is backloaded. If the deal is backloaded (as was Stephen Davis' $90 million deal back in 2000), we are going to have to either release Portis at the point at which his cap figure becomes untenable, or we will have to renegotiate the deal.

While parties can always renegotiate a deal, obviously both parties must be amenable to such a deal. While Arrington, Trotter, and Samuels have all restructured their deals to help our cap situation, at a certain point the player says, I can get a lot of money on the market in free agency and I'm not going to restructure anymore (i.e. Chris Samuels).

So, we'll have to see how it is structured to see how cap friendly it is.

BUT, you do not need to see the deal to know that it wasn't the best deal. I say that because again Portis was scheduled to make 350K next year and 450K the following year - 800K over 2 years!!!!! Moreover, Portis already said that he would go to camp with or without a new deal so it was not as though we HAD to sign Portis to a big deal.

No matter how the deal is structured, we will undoubtedly have given Portis one of, if not the most, lucrative deals ever given to a back. If we had all the leverage, why did we rush to complete a deal? If we had all the leverage, why the huge overall contract value? Those are two questions I doubt a close look at the contract will answer.

Whether the deal is backloaded or not has no impact on the salary cap hit we'd take if he is cut. The cap hit is based on how much of the pro-rated bonus money is left over.

The pro-rated bonus details are unknown. That is something that we have to look at.

HOWEVER, all this would be a moot point if Portis turns out to be a very good back and we want to keep him for awhile. If we want to keep him, we need to look at the salaries (excluding the bonuses) provided by the deal. So, with $50 million dollar deal over eight years, we are going to pay roughly 6.5 million a year on average for Portis. If it's backloaded and we want to keep him we could be faced with the same situation we dealt with when we evaluated the feasibility of keeping Stephen Davis two years ago. If it's not backloaded, we still assume a huge cap hit for the next 8 years (huge meaning roughly 6.5 million). Either way, if Portis works out, we are going to run into cap problems in the next few years.

The reason that we gave Denver a 2nd rounder in the deal was b/c it was understood between the two teams that whoever signed Bailey would have significantly less cap room than the team that pays Portis. By trading Champand signing Portis to a "cap-friendly" deal we will be able to sign more free agents than they will therefore, they would need more draft picks this year to make the deal fair.
- I think that makes sense

I really don't believe that there is such a thing as a "cap friendly" deal.

#1 Backloading a deal
Sure a deal can be "cap friendly" (a euphemism for cheap) in the early years, however then it can become expensive (aka backloaded) and therefore "cap unfriendly." So the deal isn't so much cap friendly as it is short-sighted; it's nice in the beginning but in the end it really hurts.


#2 Big Signing Bonus
Another way a deal can be "cap friendly" is if the signing bonus is fairly large. Typically, the larger the signing bonus, the smaller the total value of the contract. The idea being that if you guarantee a large portion of the contract, the contract shouldn't have to be as large. For example, wheras you can sign a player to a five year deal for $30 million with a $4 million signing bonus (averaging $6 million per year), you might be able to sign him tp a five year deal for $22 million if you give him a $7 million bonus (averaging $4.2 million per year). So, a deal with a big signing bonus isn't as much cap friendly as it is a bargain.

However, if you give a player a large signing bonus, you incur the risk of having your new signee injured or turn out to be a bust. If the player is injured and can't play football or is cut for being a bust, you're SOL because the bonus still counts against the team's cap figure even though the player isn't even on the roster.

#3 Tiered Signing Bonus
Another way the deal can be "cap friendly" is by making a portion of the signing bonus "tiered." This simply means that the bonus is not payable all at once. It can be contingent on a variety of factors (i.e. is he still on the roster bonus - roster bonus - or did he reach certain goals - incentive bonus). This isn't so much cap friendly as it is a way to protect yourself if your newly acquired player is injured or turns out to be a bust. If they are not on the roster (for reasons of injury of lack of performance), they can be cut and the "tiered" portion of the bonus is not held against the team's cap figure AFTER the player is no longer on the team's roster.

What I'm basically trying to say is that there are ways to make a contract fit your concerns (i.e. protection against the player being a bust or getting injured), but there is no way to make a HUGE deal (like Portis') truly cap friendly. Trying to cheat the cap is like cheating on a bunch of tests....it'll get you by for awhile, but eventually it catches up to you and really screws you.

The 4 reasons I don't know if I like this deal...

1) The 2nd round pick. It should be a straight up swap.

2) We didn't HAVE to do this contract right now. Why not wait until AFTER free agency, then say, hey, thsi is all we have left to offer right now, Clint'? With what he was set to be paiod, he would have settled for FAR less, just to pay off his Hummer2! ;)

...and the one no one has mentioned yet...

3) Rosenhaus is Jevon Kearse's agent. We just upped his asking price by overpaying Portis. Kearse is already asking for too much and we certainly didn't help ourselves negotiate a lower price for him.

4) Salary Cap? Am i the ignorant one here or... isn't overpaying for a 34-year old, possible BACKUP QB, having the highest paid running back in NFL history, and signing a "fragile" DE who wants an 18 million dollar signing bonus NOT going to absolutely KILL us in 2-3-4 years?? Or do we just not give a dman about the future??

The two reasons I am OK with it...

His deal IS cheaper than what we offered Champ AND it is 8 years long... meaning, he COULD be our man, our legend, our all-time great RB for the next 8 years! (I believe that would be the longest tenure of any 'Skins back in team history).... I hope it works out as such.

I acutally did mention that Kearse's agent is Drew Rosenhaus. What I said however, was that I am hoping that there is a quid pro quo and we get Kearse for $25 over three years. :D

I hear ya Ramsey... my point is... Rosenhaus has all the room in the world to say, hey, you just paid my client Portis all this money... so market value must be on the rise for ALL positions. He'll compare how Kearse is "the defensive Clinton Porits" and how he desrves a bonus Clint's size or more!


all I can say is.... yikes.

We also have all the leverage in the world. Kearse wants to play for Williams, Kearse knows Washington is assembling an amazing staff of coaches and players. He wants to win, he'll take a paycut for that.

Portis is also 22. Kearse isn't.

This whole post sounds like it's all a done deal. What if Champ decides against the deal? Is it back to the drawing board?
Also, maybe our FO talked to Portis before the deal and worked out some arrangement for the future where he would agree to restructure his contract if we gave him a huge one to begin with. ???

They already agree'd in princaple and Denver has already called a Press Conference for thursday ( first day trades can be announced), draw your own conclusions.... my conculsion is Champ will be a Bronco.