Falcons WR Julio Jones - USA Today
***WARNING, MATH IS HERE. YOU WILL FIND MATH HERE.***
So the Atlanta Falcons have salary cap space. Actually, some might refer to it as a plethora of cap space. If you’re in need of a visual representation, the Falcons have a Paul Soliai dinner plate full of salary cap space. Naturally, this also creates frustration for the fan base.
With 23 million dollars available to spend for the 2015 team, minus the rookie salary pool, the Falcons have been shopping in the bargain bin rather than at the luxury car dealership. As we enter into week two of NFL free agency, the patient approach is wearing thin for a fan base that has seen just 10 wins over the past two seasons.
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel: The new Julio Jones deal.
The Falcons have the opportunity to use their cap space to provide Jones with the financial security he wants but also protect their future salary cap management. Trust me; this can be done with a little creativity. For an example of this, let’s look at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Tampa sucks; let’s acknowledge this right off the bat. But where they hit a home run was with their contract for defensive tackle Gerald McCoy. McCoy received a six year deal that will pay him $95 million dollars over the life of the deal. This is the sort of contract that teams begin to hate when they realize they spent on a position that typically doesn’t warrant big money. But Tampa did this correctly.
Tampa used their available cap space to guarantee a massive base salary in year one of the deal for Gerald McCoy. McCoy’s 2014 base salary was $17 million, which counted entirely in 2014. His $2.5 million dollar signing bonus and various roster bonuses means that McCoy continues to get paid as long as he’s productive but his cap number never reaches $14 million. That’s smart cap management.
On the other end of the spectrum is defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh’s deal. Because of Miami’s salary cap situation, they will pay Suh a base salary of $985,000 in 2015. His cap number for 2015 is just $6.1 million, but it explodes to $28.6 million in 2016. That’s what happens when you lack cap space and flexibility.
Let’s bring this all back to Julio Jones. The Falcons could use their available space this offseason to emulate the Gerald McCoy deal from 2014. Hypothetically, we’ll say the Falcons wanted to make Jones one of the highest paid receivers in the NFL at $16 million per year on average. Let’s call this a five year deal worth $80 million dollars over the life of the deal.
The Falcons could choose to guarantee Jones’ first year base salary of $22 million and hand him a $10 million dollar signing bonus. With guaranteed roster bonuses of $6 million in 2016 and 2017, the deal would guarantee him $44 million dollars and keep him in the $14.5 million cap hit neighborhood over the life of the deal. The Falcons would never have to deal with the Calvin Johnson scenario, in which Detroit must deal with cap figures of $20 million in 2015 and $24 million in 2016.
The Falcons have the cap space. Doing a big deal with Julio would still leave them with cap space even after their rookies are signed. The best part of this deal…the Falcons would have around $20 million dollars of cap space again in 2016.