NFL contracts and salaries - a question for anyone in the know.

[billandopus]

Setup:

Player X gets a 4 year contract for XXX amount of dollars.

Player X gets released after his second year is up during the offseason (like right now for example) with 2 more years left on his contract.

Question:

Does Player X get paid for the remainder of his contract? The 2 years left before he's unceremoniously dumped? A percentage of? None?

Or does this depend on contractual factors during negotiations like "guaranteed" or "non-guaranteed"? (such a thing in NFL?) Does the team, in terminating a players contract, get to reduce the amount or pro-rate the amount of the contract left over in lieu of being able to better position themselves to sign a big name free agent? How does that work?

Lots of questions.

Anybody have any answers? Love to hear them.

 

[GoldenBear]

This might be WAY off..but here's my theory:

You can't get released if your contract is still going, unless the said player violates a clause in the contract that would allow the team to do so..in which case there's no obligation to pay them..

 

[pdiddy]

in the nba, a released player is owed the amount of his contract by original team until another team picks him up

 

[somethingwitty]

ok, here's a semi-knowledgable response, with a bit of educated guessing and BS thrown in...

first of all, player X probably signed for 4 years, XXX dollars and a signing bonus-the signing bonus is guaranteed, and, if he is cut, I believe it will count against the cap evenly regardless of the fact that he's gone-so if he signed for 8mil, I THINK he'll count 2mil against the cap each year, even the next two..Same thing if he retires.

next, contracts in the nfl are NOT guarenteed. Thats why this time period occurs, where teams dump players to get under the cap. in the nba, they are guarenteed, which is why michael jordan was VERY lucky to trade Howard, considering that he will make something like 18-20 million for the next 3-4 years...they do, however, have some form of a buyout option, i think.

back to the nfl-i know that there are instances where a player could fight for a small portion of the remainder of his salary, though they might be some form of an injury settlement...I recall hearing something like $225,000 for, for example, keith sims, who the 'skins just cut-i believe they are allowed (and did) to designate the move as injury related (that could be the BS kicking in, though), and his "settlement" does NOT count against the cap.

Ok, I'm not sure how accurate I am-though I am fairly confident in most of what i've said. many GM's struggle with all the salary cap laws 24X7-i cant do it too well with no experience and at 5am.

hope that helps.

 

[Double Trouble]

somethingwitty is correct. The exact rules of caponomics are very complicated, and the collective bargaining agreement between the players and the owners is more complicated than the IRS tax codes :Q

Teams have the option of guaranteeing contracts, but it doesn't make sense in the NFL because of the injury factor -- players are much more likely to get injured.

Here's the way it generally works:

• 
  Players receive some signing bonus when they sign their contract. That money is theirs to keep regardless of their performance so long as they don't violate the terms of the contract or retire (Barry Sanders anyone?).
  
  
  Players are not owed their base salary if they get cut by the team, in other words, they get zippo unless they sign with another team.
  
  Signing bonuses count against the salary cap on a prorated basis. For example, if a player gets a $10 million signing bonus for a 5 year contract, the signing bonus counts for $2 mil against the cap every year of the deal -- unless the player gets cut or traded, in which case the remainder of the prorated bonus counts against the cap immediately (that's the situation the Cowboys are in now with Aikman if he retires).
  
  Contracts can be restructured for cap purposes (in other words, a player will defer some compensation for a new higher paying contract and a signing bonus etc). Teams do this with their big contracts to get under the salary cap every year.
  
  Players can get injury settlements, but that process too is pretty complicated. In general, if a team cuts a player because he's hurt, they have to pay him a certain part of his salary, but that part of it remains murky to me.

Because NFL teams have the option of simply cutting a player if he's not performing, I think NFL players are more justified in holding out for better contracts than, say, baseball or NBA players. If a baseball player signs a big 10 year deal and then sucks after 3 years, he still gets payed the huge contract. If an NFL player gets cut after 3 years, he doesn't get squat for the remaining 7 years of the contract, unless there's a specific clause in the contract.