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Originally Posted by AnonEmouse
That's a hell of an expensive BJ!  (Sorry couldn't resist.)
Seriously though, he won't be badly missed. If Gibbs is running his old offensive style virtually unchanged, Johnson would have been an expensive luxury.
One thing though - according to the write up I saw the contract is heavily laden with almost unobtainable incentives. The 2.2M amount qouted is the cap hit IF all his bonuses are paid. He's unlikely to get anywhere near that, so the Saints will get a cap rebate based on what he actually earns. The big problem in reality is his $800,000 roster bonus - it's not a signing bonus so hits the cap in full this year. We can't afford that for what we get out of him. |
The $2.2 million cap hit sticks in 2004, so it actually is a real number and it does have to be accounted for on this year's cap. It's due to the fact that the unobtainable incentives you speak of are actually included as "likely to be earned" incentives-- which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's one of the latest toys teams have started playing with to improve their
future cap numbers. The Vikings did this to great success last year, and got a huge total rebate on this year's cap. It basically gives you extra cap room in future years. So the Saints would have a little more money to play with in 2005.
By including the $800,000 roster bonus up front-- rather than a prorated signing bonus--the Saints are using their 2004 cap room (around $11 million) as leverage against the Skins (around $4 million), essentially betting that the Skins can't afford to take such a large up-front hit for an unessential player. It actually makes a lot of sense-- if you have extra money in the current cap year to play with, why not use it to your advantage, while improving your outlook in future years?