Joey Porter Jr contract negotiations

After having convinced my wife to marry my dumb, ugly self, I think I may be the best negotiator on this board.

 

The ladder was on the veranda

STEP
STEP
STEP
NOT A STEP!!!

 

1. They are almost certainly going to restructure DK to free up cap space.
2. Porter's 1st year cap hit on the new deal won't be all that much compared to the AAV. Here's McDuffy's deal (top CB by AAV). His 1st year cap hit was $10.8mm in year 1. Porter is currently on the books for a $4.9MM cap hit. So we'd need $~6mm more.
3. Metcalf's salary this year is $25MM. If we turn ~ $23MM (I don't know what his min salary is, but this leaves him with $2MM), then we prorate that over the next 4 years. So his cap hit this year would drop by $17.25MM, but increase by $5.75MM in each of the next 3 years (at least that's how I understand restructures to work).
4. Doing that gives us ~ $11MM more cap space than we have now ($17MM) after a deal with Porter (if he had the same first year cap hit as McDuffy). [6.1 + 17 - 6 = $17mm...unless I screwed something up]

There's like a 99% chance they extend Porter...and a 1% chance (probably less) this doesn't work out.

His salary of the next 3 years is already capped: current year is on the books, team can tag, team can tag again. This sets the cap for what he can earn in the first 2 years of the extension. I did some math to get an estimate on a previous thread with Porter. I think I came up with something like $28mm. But that assumes that the top 5 CB contracts stay the same from now to next season, so it's probably a little more.

IMO, the only way it doesn't happen is if he decides to pull a Bell. Which even Bell didn't do until they put the tag on him the 2nd time (they can't even put the tag on Porter once...and can't until next season).

 

Yes

Guaranteed money is creeping down from the first to the second round and now it will go into third.

 

It will be interesting to see how they handle this in Porter's contract IMO.

On 2nd+ contracts, they used to only have "full" guarantees in year 2 for guys who were (1) franchise QBs (Bun multiple times), then (2) 1st team all pros (first TJ, then Minkah).

But they extended this to DK, who had gone to a probowl (don't know if this was "real" or injury replacement because PFR is stupid with how they label this). He was also 2nd team all pro in 2020 (but that was years before we signed him). He was also a UFA, and that's always the most expensive way to acquire talent.

Porter is really good IMO. But he hasn't been to a probowl (real or otherwise). And never been on an AP team. But he was "home grown". And that might count for something.

My guess is that they only give him fully guaranteed money in year 1, but he gets a somewhat higher AAV because of it.

I think that 2nd year money from the Steelers is virtually guaranteed for good players, since they aren't going to cut him and take the huge pro-ration. I think the only reason they don't like to guarantee money in the 2nd year is because then Rooney has to put that money in escrow. And I think that's not an easy thing for him to do because he's not a guy who's sitting on a ton of cash. I think it's been consistently reported that he has a lot fewer liquid assets than most NFL owners. I think that the owners will probably push to change this rule in the next CBA.

 

I think the escrow thing is a major reason the Steelers, Packers, and Bengals traditionally do not do a great deal of guarantees outside of year one. It is also an interesting CBA point....the NFLPA should fight to keep it....without the escrow guarantee....they are totally exposed on salary. Interesting to think about.

 

Are you sure that is how it went with Bell? I thought it was while he was on the tag the first time, then his dumbass agent realized Bell could sit out the entire season, and the Steelers would have to use the higher tag to do it again.

 

Pretty sure it was the 2nd tag.

You can see his contract history here.

He was drafted in 2013 (2nd round, so 4 year contract).

Played 2013 - 2016 on his rookie deal.

He played on the tag in 2017.

We tagged him again in 2018.