Question about NFL contracts

[DolphinDiva]

Everyone here knows a lot about the game so this seems the logical place to ask.
Say a team has a veteran they wish to part ways with.The problem is that this veteran still has three years left on his contract and won't be a free agent anytime soon.Does the team that wants to cut him loose still have to pay him what is left on his contract or does whatever team picks him up have to pay what's left?
Please don't flame me guys,I really don't know how this all works.Thanks

[3Ply Stagliano]

I find all that side of things a bit confusing myself. I always made the assumption the new team the player is going to would take on his contract and pay him whatever he was due to be paid. What confuses me then is how come the old team can still get a bit 'stung' for a player no longer on its roster? Does that only apply to cuts and not trades? If a player is traded, does that 'wipe the slate clean' as far as their old team's responsibility? Is it set up that way to try to get teams to keep players in a job?

Sorry to take this off at a bit of a tangent there.

[DolphinDiva]

I am curious about those things myself,thanks for replying to my post though,I appreciate it.

[chris66]

the team that cuts said player will get docked any remaining money left on the signing bonus ex: dolphins cut jason taylor , say he has 2 yrs left on the contract and 6 million of signing bonus. that signing bonus will count towards that years cap. player can now shop his services to any team ala what zack thomas did.

[#1dolphinsfan]

they have to pay out his contract

[tylerdolphin]

Originally Posted by #1dolphinsfan

they have to pay out his contract

Not base salaries. In a contract there is basically guaranteed and non-guaranteed money. They non-guaranteed comes in the form of base salary and when a player is released, then that money is forgotten about. It isnt held against the teams cap and they dont have to pay the player this portion.

Now, guaranteed money comes usually in the form of a signing bonus. Signing bonus is amortized over the length of the contract. In other words, if a player gets a $10M signing bonus on a 5 year deal, the player is payed the full 10M up front, but the the cap hit of the 10M is spread out over the 5 years of the deal. So the cap hit from the guaranteed money will be $2M/year. This helps the team cap wise and when you see news that a veteran "restructured" their deal to help the team, all it means is that the player converted some of his base salary for that year into bonus money, which the team to spread out over the length of the players deal. Its a win/win. The player gets a guaranteed payment, the team saves cap room in the short term.

Now, heres how it works as far as the player being cut. Lets say a player signed a 4 year deal worth $12M, with 4M of that as signing bonus. So we have $8M in base salary charged over 4 years, which is $2M a year. The 4M in bonus is spread over the the length of the deal, so thats another 1M per year in bonus money. After the 3rd year of this deal, the team decides they want to cut the player. When he is cut, the team saves the 2M base salary they owed the player. But the 1M in amortized bonus is charged to the cap, so in reality they only save $1M. All signing bonus money left on the contact when a player is cut is charged to the cap, even though the money has already been payed to the play when he signed, because the team spread out the cap hit.

This is why some bad players arent cut or traded. Say a players base salary is 1M, but he has 4M in bonus money still spread out over his remaining contract. If he is cut or traded, the team will save his 1M base salary, but will be charged 4M against the cap. So they really lose 3M in cap space. The Dolphins could find themselves in a similar situation if Jake Long blows.

OK...this was my longest post ever. I hope its understandable because I feel like im just rambling on and on. Also not that this only applies to SIGNING bonuses. Roster bonuses are charged to the cap they the year they are recieved and are not amortized.

[HughC]

Originally Posted by DolphinDiva

Say a team has a veteran they wish to part ways with.The problem is that this veteran still has three years left on his contract and won't be a free agent anytime soon.Does the team that wants to cut him loose still have to pay him what is left on his contract or does whatever team picks him up have to pay what's left?

In this scenario if the team cuts him, they do not have to pay him. The team that picks him up signs him to a new contract, the original contract is done.

The only money guaranteed to a player is his signing bonus. Not like baseball, where that player gets all the money of the full contract no matter what.

The other thing that comes in to play is the salary cap. Let's say your player signed a four year contract that included a $12 million dollar signing bonus. For each of those four years $3mil of that signing bonus is counted towards the cap. If the team cuts him after one year, the remaining portion of the bonus - $9mil in this case - gets counted against the salary cap. In other words, $9mil less that the team can use to spend on other players due to that "dead money". For that reason they may hold on to him till it gets closer to the end of his contract.

Edit - sorry for the redundant reply, didn't see the previous response.