Jump to content

Chris Johnson Contract Details


JetNation

Recommended Posts

Pro Football Talk is reporting that the contract Chris Johnson signed with the Jets was for 2 years and 8 million dollars.  He reportedly has another 1 million in available incentives.

RotoWorld adds that the signing bonus was 3 million dollars.

Chris Johnson’s two-year contract with the Jets has a base value of $8 million with a $3 million signing bonus.  Another $1 million is available through incentives.

Titans beat writer Jim Wyatt (The Tennessean) has been covering the Titans since 1999 and he seems to think this was a very good move for the Jets.  John Idzik has been accused of being a bargain shopper.  Looks like there was a half price sale on Chris Johnson.

 

Wyatt also tweeted that Chris Johnson was a good guy who gets a bad rap.  When it comes to Shonn Greene vs Chris Johnson, Wyatt would pick Johnson, every day of the week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seems to be:

 

Year 1: paid $4M ($3M SB, $1M salary).  Cap = $2.5M 

 

Year 2: if kept, paid another $4M. Cap hit is $5.5M.  

Year 2: if cut, paid zero.  Cap hit (dead money) is $1.5M. 

 

Barring injury or some other new setback, I think he'll be here for the 2 years.  With so many RBs, I think it's hard to see us take a RB in the draft now even using Idzik's beloved BPA, and that position isn't one you typically draft to groom for the long-term future for anyway.  If this year of FA represents the "new normal," it pays to pick up sure-thing or has-upside veteran RBs and use them up for a couple of years (putting it bluntly) because they're pretty cheap free agents compared to other positions like CB.  But given that, while still possible, I don't see us "grooming" some 2014 rookie to take CJ's roster spot in 2015.  So again, unless there's some setback that doesn't exist today, I think he'll be here next season.  

 

His $5.5M won't feel like much; we're going to push forward over $10M to next year, and presently overthecap.com doesn't have us projected to have even $80M in payroll yet for 2015 (without CJ added yet, and without next year's draft picks' dollars of course).  That would still leave some $40M+ in space again next season. Particularly if we're contenders, as is the idea, CJ isn't going to be cut for cap reasons if he's producing & healthy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe someone else can chime in, but I don't know how CJ's $1M incentive bonus works, whether it's LTBE or NLTBE.  I thought the league did away with that because it led to phony incentives to roll over cap space to the following season, and replaced it with the team just telling the league in August how much space they want to push to the following season.  (An example of a phony incentive would be us "restructuring" Sheldon Richardson's contract so he gets a $10M bonus in 2014 if he gets 2+ rushing TDs again. Under the old rules that would have been considered "likely" because he did it last year, and therefore we'd have been required to keep that space available.  In reality everyone knows it isn't going to happen (and we can easily see to it that it doesn't).  But it still would have tied up that $10M in 2014 cap space, since we'd have to leave room. That unpaid $10M would have therefore rolled over in the form of a higher cap/spending ceiling in 2015). Again, I thought the league did away with that with this CBA, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Still, I don't know how the league handles incentive bonuses then if they did away with that completely.  If the incentive bonus hits in 2014, and he doesn't reach the incentive, we shouldn't lose $1M in cap space we didn't pay to the player (and have a hard time believing this happens, where we lose the cap space whether or not we paid it to a player).  Do they just hit the following year, since it's kind of a floating cap now? Or did the league still leave the LTBE/NLTBE stuff in there, but only did away with it for blatant cap maneuvers like I outlined above?

 

Anyone?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seems to be:

 

Year 1: paid $4M ($3M SB, $1M salary).  Cap = $2.5M 

 

Year 2: if kept, paid another $4M. Cap hit is $5.5M.  

Year 2: if cut, paid zero.  Cap hit (dead money) is $1.5M. 

 

Barring injury or some other new setback, I think he'll be here for the 2 years.  With so many RBs, I think it's hard to see us take a RB in the draft now even using Idzik's beloved BPA, and that position isn't one you typically draft to groom for the long-term future for anyway.  If this year of FA represents the "new normal," it pays to pick up sure-thing or has-upside veteran RBs and use them up for a couple of years (putting it bluntly) because they're pretty cheap free agents compared to other positions like CB.  But given that, while still possible, I don't see us "grooming" some 2014 rookie to take CJ's roster spot in 2015.  So again, unless there's some setback that doesn't exist today, I think he'll be here next season.  

 

His $5.5M won't feel like much; we're going to push forward over $10M to next year, and presently overthecap.com doesn't have us projected to have even $80M in payroll yet for 2015 (without CJ added yet, and without next year's draft picks' dollars of course).  That would still leave some $40M+ in space again next season. Particularly if we're contenders, as is the idea, CJ isn't going to be cut for cap reasons if he's producing & healthy.

as always , the info I was looking for..4M guaranteed with caveat of figuring out the incentive stuff..thanks man

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe someone else can chime in, but I don't know how CJ's $1M incentive bonus works, whether it's LTBE or NLTBE.  I thought the league did away with that because it led to phony incentives to roll over cap space to the following season, and replaced it with the team just telling the league in August how much space they want to push to the following season.  (An example of a phony incentive would be us "restructuring" Sheldon Richardson's contract so he gets a $10M bonus in 2014 if he gets 2+ rushing TDs again. Under the old rules that would have been considered "likely" because he did it last year, and therefore we'd have been required to keep that space available.  In reality everyone knows it isn't going to happen (and we can easily see to it that it doesn't).  But it still would have tied up that $10M in 2014 cap space, since we'd have to leave room. That unpaid $10M would have therefore rolled over in the form of a higher cap/spending ceiling in 2015). Again, I thought the league did away with that with this CBA, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Still, I don't know how the league handles incentive bonuses then if they did away with that completely.  If the incentive bonus hits in 2014, and he doesn't reach the incentive, we shouldn't lose $1M in cap space we didn't pay to the player (and have a hard time believing this happens, where we lose the cap space whether or not we paid it to a player).  Do they just hit the following year, since it's kind of a floating cap now? Or did the league still leave the LTBE/NLTBE stuff in there, but only did away with it for blatant cap maneuvers like I outlined above?

 

Anyone?

 

I cannot say for sure, but my understanding was that they did in fact do away with the LTBE/NLTBE setup, with the point being that the new rolling cap was pretty much implemented for the exact purpose of replacing all of that nonsense.  Due to that, I believe any incentives end up hitting the cap once they're reached / paid out, or in the case of anything reached during the season itself, I believe it would hit the next year's cap.

 

I think the point is that with the cap rolling over the way it is, it shouldn't really much matter and it's up for the team to keep the money available and figure out where they want to account for it.  Because if a team wanted to, it would be beyond easy these days to just set aside $1M from this year's cap to roll into next year to cover that incentive, or just spend everything they've got and worry about clearing out the space next season if it's reached.  I think the point is that, with the new cap setup, as long as the team eventually takes the hit, the league doesn't really care about much else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I cannot say for sure, but my understanding was that they did in fact do away with the LTBE/NLTBE setup, with the point being that the new rolling cap was pretty much implemented for the exact purpose of replacing all of that nonsense.  Due to that, I believe any incentives end up hitting the cap once they're reached / paid out, or in the case of anything reached during the season itself, I believe it would hit the next year's cap.

 

I think the point is that with the cap rolling over the way it is, it shouldn't really much matter and it's up for the team to keep the money available and figure out where they want to account for it.  Because if a team wanted to, it would be beyond easy these days to just set aside $1M from this year's cap to roll into next year to cover that incentive, or just spend everything they've got and worry about clearing out the space next season if it's reached.  I think the point is that, with the new cap setup, as long as the team eventually takes the hit, the league doesn't really care about much else.

But still, we would not be permitted to spend as much as other teams. This would also hamper our ability to stay within the new rules about spending over a certain time frame. Our cap would be hit with a penalty for money that was never paid to a player, which doesn't make much sense no matter what.

Every dollar that hits the cap is a dollar already paid to a player. Not a dollar that the player failed to earn, not a dollar that will be earned later on, but a dollar that was flat-out paid from the team to the player. Then multiply that dollar by however many millions of times a dollar was paid out, and you have the total cap hit.

Also which year does the million hit? Back in the LTBE/NLTBE days we would have had to clear space in 2014 specifically. Maybe that's the other side of the coin, as I guessed above, which is if the incentive is reached then that takes away from space the following year. But then that would leave a pretty big loophole. Let's say we were up against the cap with only $1M to spend and wanted to sign someone for $10M. The way I just outlined, we could sign him for $1M base salary, no signing bonus, and a $9M incentive to be active for 1 game this season, or get 1 yard rushing, or whatever. Then next year $9M hits when that team has plenty of room (plus maybe a cap limit that grows by another $10M).

Likewise, if we lose the money this year and can't get it back, then if a team WANTED to escape the minimum cap spending, then wouldn't this otherwise be a loophole for an owner? "OK, Sheldon Richardson has a $5M bonus for getting 2 rushing TDs." We have to keep the $5M clear on the '14 cap. We never spend it, and the league then doesn't allow us to spend it in the future. Owner is exempt from $5M in payroll spending.

Why do I give a crap? This is probably the best and most mysterious question of all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This contract is actually more money (on average) than I expected the Jets to be willing to pay out. I thought the ceiling would be in the $3.5M/year range. Not that I'm complaining that he overpaid. I'm actually encouraged that he wanted the player enough to pay more than the going rate for veteran backs to close the deal. Hopefully it works out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...