SHOULD WE redo Taylor's contract?

OK, I've been thinking. (Which, I'll admit, I'm not very good at. )

NFLPA.org doesn't seem to list player's salaries on there, any more, so I'm going to have to take a WAG at some numbers.

But what I've been hearing is that Taylor's scheduled to make $7.5M this year. I'm going to assume that his contract salary for next year is pretty close to that. (It won't be less, but I'm going to assume it's not much more, either.)

Now, granted, that's a lot of money to tie up in a player. OTOH, at least this year, we have the money.

Whereas, if we do a new contract, then we're going to have to make it a longer contract, with a big bonus and smaller salary for the first two years. (And, wouldn't the Deion Sanders rule mean that the third year of the contract would have to be gynormous?)

And that means "lots of dead money". To a player who is getting old (although he's been a Iron Man so far), and who was threatening to quit soon, anyway.

Whereas it occurs to me that if we just keep the existing contract, then we've got a player who's got a big salary, but he only gets the salary if he plays. If he quits, gets cut, or gets injured, then his cap hit goes away, too.

If he's money for two years, then we can extend him without creating an even bigger cap hit. If he gets hit by a bolt of lightening in Game 1, then there's no cap hit.

(And it eliminates the potential distraction of attempting to renegotiate a contract while the player is trying to fit in to a new DL, during training camp.)

But mostly, I'm thinking that if there's a question about how long he'll play, then there's something to be said for a contract with no dead money.

well if we are gonna sign farve, then of course...ddduuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

If that's true then no

no scratch that

HELL NO!

There was a tidbit yesterday with Vincenzo saying that there could be a possibility of an extension to his contract where he may play more than 2 years.

Mind you this is all very preliminary, as I don't even think that Taylor knows how much more he wants to play. I believe that it all hinges on this season and that the issue of his contract may not come up until after February 2009.

He's scheduled to make $8.5M next year, including a $500K RB. If we redo the deal it would probably be a 3yr deal with a $15M SB and vet min salaries the first two years, with the third year being irrelevant. He would retire in two years and we would have a $5M dead cap hit in 2010.

once again I forgot everything I was going to say when I started looking at LMB's sig.

If we do a new contract we will stil pay him the same just allocated differetnly. If we can eat up 7.5 this season, why not just keep it, if we need room next season, re-do it then,... if we have the room now, lets use it now.

I say we need to make him a freaking sweet backloaded offer with a 3rd year that will make him want to come back if he's still playing at a high level. (I'm talking 10 million unless we cut him, for the third year.)

Plus allocation to bonuses for this year so we have room to sign a vet LB or CB if we need to. Elsewhere I think we're fine for depth, but if Rocky Mac or Carlos don't end up healthy then we're ****ed on depth. Rocky comes back, LB is fine, but not fantastic, Blades can backup all three positions. Carlos doesn't come back and we end up with a competition between Torrence and Tryon for a nickel CB. That doesn't sit well with me considering that injury history of Smoot and Springs.

once again I forgot everything I was going to say when I started looking at LMB's sig.

I sometimes catch myself looking at for awhile aswell.

Our cap looks fine for this year, so I say roll with the existing contract for this year, check his interest in playing longer, and extend him a year or two after that. No need to do the same old "sign and extend" we always do.

Yeah, I could see them working out a contract where we think his cap hit's going to be 5/5/5, instead of the 7.5/8.5 he's contracted for, now.

But to me, that deal (the three-year contract) only helps the team if he plays exactly two years.

Under the three-year deal, if he decides to retire (or gets injured, or something) after one year, then we either get hit with a single, $10M cap hit next year, or two years cap hit of five each. (And, under the three-year deal, his decision as to whether to retire after one year is going to factor in that he's already got his $15M bonus, so all he'll be playing for the second year is his minimum-wage salary. Which might affect his will to come back.)

And, looking the other way, if he's still going strong after 2 years, and we decide that maybe he's good for 3, then we;ll be stuck in the position of having to extend him again, pushing even more dead money, even further into the future.

Like I said: To me, the three-year option only helps us if he plays exactly two more years. (And even in that best-possible scenario, all it does is free up $2M this year, and $2.5M next year, at the cost of $5M in the third year.)

Keep the contract this year, redo it next year if he is committed to stay next year and the year after....

Keep the contract this year, redo it next year if he is committed to stay next year and the year after....

I couldn't agree more. Why get ourselves into another Blloyd situation where we give them money up front and they quit on us. Another bad example I can cite is Deon. Big money up front and he retired after one year. What if Taylor decides to hang it up?

NO, we should let him play out his contract, w/o adding more years.

I agree with you completely, Larry. But because I don't trust him to play 3 years (or even two, necessarily), I think the best option is to let him play out this contract. As you said in the OP, we've got the money, so we might as well.

An extension means we're committing to pay him $5m when he's 36 years old. Even if he plays that long, there's no guarantee he'll be worth that kind of coin. 36 is OLD for a D-lineman in this league. Look at Philip Daniels: in the best condition he's been in for years at age 35, and can't even make it through camp. It's a dangerous gamble.

Players can experience a huge dropoff at that age, or even younger, after getting beat on over a long career. Shaun Alexander comes to mind. Not the same position, but the same principle: nagging injuries pile up over the years and finally it becomes too much to bear. And then we're stuck paying a guy who's no longer on the team.

If we can get by without more cap room, I'd rather pay out his existing deal and not have to worry about big dead cap money. We can worry about year 3 when it gets here, we will hopefully have a young replacement by then anyway.

Hell no, do you want another Mark Brunell?

We just dont know yet, give it a year and see how well he performs, and if he exceeds expectations and is still playing at a high level, then yeah why not add a few more years

But right now, just let him play his contract out, he seems happy to be here, and says he will play his two years, way too early to bring finances into the Jason taylor discussion

No.

Let's see what he brings to the table before talking about any type of extension.

Oh, I thought that you were wanting a more incentive laden contract Larry.

Yeah, I could see them working out a contract where we think his cap hit's going to be 5/5/5, instead of the 7.5/8.5 he's contracted for, now.

But to me, that deal (the three-year contract) only helps the team if he plays exactly two years.

Under the three-year deal, if he decides to retire (or gets injured, or something) after one year, then we either get hit with a single, $10M cap hit next year, or two years cap hit of five each. (And, under the three-year deal, his decision as to whether to retire after one year is going to factor in that he's already got his $15M bonus, so all he'll be playing for the second year is his minimum-wage salary. Which might affect his will to come back.)

And, looking the other way, if he's still going strong after 2 years, and we decide that maybe he's good for 3, then we;ll be stuck in the position of having to extend him again, pushing even more dead money, even further into the future.

Like I said: To me, the three-year option only helps us if he plays exactly two more years. (And even in that best-possible scenario, all it does is free up $2M this year, and $2.5M next year, at the cost of $5M in the third year.)

If he extends it will be for a total of 4 years in DC total so that you can June1st that remaining bonus over two years.

I would hope his contract would be a 15 mil bonus with the vet minimum for two years. Give a nice Salary in year three and four of say 3 - 5 million.

That would make his cap hit this year 4.5 million. That gives us a rainy day fund and the ability to sign a few more vets if we need them. If we have what king said (9.8 million in space) then we can give him a 3 mill roster bonus to make the team and make the signing bonus 12 million. That makes this years cap hit 6.75 million with 3 mil left for injury and a vet or two at minimum salary. Also keep in mind we will free up about 2 or 3 million when some of the players are cut for the final roster and cheaper players like Rhinehart and Tryon and Brooks make the final team.

I don't think so. They shouldn't be investing in dead money.

wait and see

For those who think we shouldn't redo his deal, I hope you realize that what we have is pretty much it. I would rather redo JT's deal then redo Washington or Griffins. Perhaps one of the rookies comes on and allows us to release Fabini or Wade. If the one source is not right and we have 9.8 million prior to JT trade, which I think is high considering everyone else had us in the 8+ million range, we only have about a mil to work with + the 2 or 3 that we will have after some releases of possibles like Fox, 2 wr's, Frost, and a couple of other players on the bubble that currently count on the Rule of 51.

For those who think we shouldn't redo his deal, I hope you realize that what we have is pretty much it. I would rather redo JT's deal then redo Washington or Griffins. Perhaps one of the rookies comes on and allows us to release Fabini or Wade. If the one source is not right and we have 9.8 million prior to JT trade, which I think is high considering everyone else had us in the 8+ million range, we only have about a mil to work with + the 2 or 3 that we will have after some releases of possibles like Fox, 2 wr's, Frost, and a couple of other players on the bubble that currently count on the Rule of 51.

That's an excellent point, if we drop a few players that currently count in the rule of 51, then that could free up some cap room too.

Hopefully we get an uncapped year in 2010 so his salary wont matter!