Types of Free Agents UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENT A player with four-or-more accrued seasons and an expired contract is an unrestricted free agent. Unrestricted free agents are free to negotiate with any team. RESTRICTED FREE AGENT A player with three accrued seasons and an expired contract is a restricted free agent. A restricted free agent is... Continue Reading →
Team have until May 2 to exercise their Fifth-Year Options for first-rounders from the 2014 NFL Draft. For an explanation of the Fifth-Year Option, click here. Jadeveon Clowney, Houston Texans After missing 15 of his first 32 career games, Clowney finally proved to be the player the Texans expected when he was selected first overall.... Continue Reading →
In the NFL, salary is defined as “…the compensation in money, property, investments, loans or anything else of value to which an NFL player…is entitled in accordance with a Player Contract, but not including benefits (NFL CBA, p. 90). A player and team can agree to different types of payments that can affect the salary... Continue Reading →
Dead Money and Acceleration The term “Dead Money” refers to the amount of player’s salary that a team has already committed to but hasn’t been charged to the cap (NFL CBA, p. 93-95). It’s essentially a sunk cost. Signing bonus prorations, fully guaranteed base salaries and earned bonuses are examples of dead money—money a team... Continue Reading →
Incentives in veteran player contracts, unlike those rookie deals that are limited to playing time, can be earned through the accomplishment of individual and team goals (i.e. statistics, playing time, awards, etc.) specified in the contract (NFL CBA, p. 96-104). For a list of acceptable performance incentives see pages 98-101 in the CBA. There are... Continue Reading →
An option bonus is similar to a roster bonus. However, rather than receiving money for remaining on a team on a certain date, the team has the “option” to pay the bonus or terminate the player’s contract. When an option bonus is exercised, it is subject to probation like a signing bonus. If the option... Continue Reading →
Some contracts also have workout bonuses, which a player earns by participating in an agreed upon percentage of the team’s offseason workout program. Most big contracts contain these bonuses as an incentive to get veteran players to attend voluntary workouts. A similar type of compensation is a reporting bonus. A player earns this bonus by... Continue Reading →
A roster bonus is another form of compensation for NFL players. If a player contract contains a roster bonus in it, it is considered earned when the player remains on his team’s roster on a specified date. This type of bonus typically counts against the salary cap, in whole, during the League Year that it... Continue Reading →
A signing bonus, as the name suggests, is an upfront payment a player receives to sign his contract. When it comes to salary cap accounting rules, signing bonuses and P5 salaries are completely different. The amount a player gets to sign can be prorated or spread across the life of the contract (up to a... Continue Reading →
Brace yourself to hear the word guarantee(d) a lot in this section. It’s just what it is called, so it is what it is. Unlike NBA and MLB deals, NFL contracts are not guaranteed. However, some money in some contracts is fully guaranteed when a player puts pen to paper. Any signing bonus a player... Continue Reading →
Surely, anyone who pays attention to ESPN or NFL Network coverage has heard the terms “base salary” or “game check.” In the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement, this salary is referred to as Paragraph 5 (P5) Salary because its details are set forth in the fifth paragraph of the standard NFL player contract. A player’s P5... Continue Reading →
When a player is not on a team’s Active or Inactive List, the team can reduce that player’s salary due to his services being unavailable (i.e. on a team’s Injured Reserve list). Many young players, typically late-round draft picks, will sign what are referred to as Split Contracts to reduce the financial burden to teams... Continue Reading →
