Portis Agrees to $51M Deal With Redskins
 

[I]By JOSEPH WHITE, AP Sports Writer

WASHINGTON - Clinton Portis agreed to an eight-year, $50.5 million contract with the Washington Redskins (news) on Monday, while Champ Bailey neared completion of a deal with the Denver Broncos (news) that would clear the way for a Portis-for-Bailey trade later this week.

Portis' deal, one of the richest ever for a running back, includes $17 million in bonus money, according to Portis' agent, Drew Rosenhaus. Portis is set to join quarterback Mark Brunell, who will be acquired in a trade with Jacksonville, in a revamped offense in coach Joe Gibbs' first season back in Washington.

First, however, the Broncos must agree to terms with Bailey, who would be sent from to Washington to Denver along with a second-round draft pick in exchange for Portis. Talks have gone well since Bailey's visit to Denver last week.

"Everything is skating right along schedule," Bailey's agent, Jack Reale, said Monday. "Things could be wrapped up quickly, maybe by tomorrow."

Trades cannot officially take place until the offseason trade and free agency period begins Wednesday, although they can be announced before then.

Portis' agreement represents another aggressive move by big-spending Redskins owner Dan Snyder, who didn't have to work out a new deal for the running back in order for the trade to take place. Portis' old, cap-friendly contract ran for two more years. Although he wanted a new deal after making just $300,000 last season, Washington was under no deadline to give him one.

This is also the second blockbuster contract Snyder has given a running back in four years. In 2000, he signed Stephen Davis to a nine-year, $90.75 million deal, but its long-term salary cap ramifications were so dire that Davis was cut one year ago and signed by Carolina.

The Portis-Broncos trade represents a rare swap of two young players hitting their prime. Bailey has been to four straight Pro Bowls and is one of the top shutdown cornerbacks in the league, while Portis has rushed for more than 1,500 yards in each of his first two NFL seasons.

Portis was scheduled to make $380,000 next season and $455,000 in 2005, a bargain price for a top running back. Portis' unhappiness with Denver's unwillingness to negotiate a new contract precipitated the trade talks.

The Redskins gave Bailey permission to talk to other teams and designated him as their franchise player last month. Bailey's contract expires this week, and he and the Redskins never came close to agreement on a new deal.[/I]

Wow, tha'ts a pretty penny, he's worth every cent though!

Well, the bottom line is that we wanted a top flight RB, and now we have one. Living in Chicago, I have to stress how nice it is to see an organization try to go out and get what they need, not rehab other teams rejects. In sports you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Owners that go and buy up everything get ragged on, and owners that are stingy get ragged on.

I support the effort. 100%

Still cheaper than the $50M six year deal tha Champ Bailey is set sign with Denver. I think we got a better cap deal than Denver.

[QUOTE=Defensewins]Still cheaper than the $50M six year deal tha Champ Bailey is set sign with Denver. I think we got a better cap deal than Denver.[/QUOTE]

That was the first thing that struck me about the deal, less than we'd offered Bailey. Nice. This puts us in a much stronger position.

Sadistic, you guys have a pretty good RB, and I feel bad for Jaron, I thought he was finally turning it around. The A-Train came on late in the year, I think he'll do better next year.

The 2nd round pick was still to much!
 

I like having him but is his size going to hurt him down the line? What about the other running backs on the team? What about the line with little draft picks? But then again it really not this coming year we are going to talk about super bowl it will most likely take another draft to get there![COLOR=DarkRed]undefined[/COLOR]

He's 5'11 209? That's not that undersized. He'll be fine, I wouldn't suggest slamming him up the middle 8 times on a goal line stand. Be nice to use Bryan Johnson or Rock in that situation. Even though Rock failed us quite a few times last year in short yardage situations.

Wait a minute here. I HATE this deal. It is dumb, dumb, dumb. I thought we were going to resign Portis, but for this much! No WAY! We're going to have to pay the Pied Piper some day and this deal makes our tab that much worse.

Portis had no leverage in negotiations; he already backed off that statement that he would hold out of training camp and he was getting paid squat for the next two years. So what does Snyder do? He goes and makes Portis the highest paid back in the league. Wow, that's some slick negotiating, we really stuck it to Portis and his agent Drew Rosenhaus.

Portis may be worth every penny and Bailey's deal might have been less cap friendly, but I am certain that we could have got Portis for less money.

Ramseyfan is excactly right here, Dan Synder REALLY screwed this one up. Portis had no leverage in neg. and we still once again overpayed big time. You can't do that with the salary cap. I can't believe this crap. Portis is gonna be the highest paid RB in the league but he certainly is not the best. We don't even know how good he's gonna be w-out the denver o-line. THIS IS EXCATLY WHY WE NEED A GM.

WHERE GONE BURN IN SALARY CAP HELL!

Was Barry Sanders undersized? Emmitt Smith? Shannahan is overconfident and I think he'll regret letting Portis go. From what I've read, a lot of Denver fans are unhappy about this trade. As for the Skins, I support making a major salary cap commitment to a stud RB, but not for a CB, even one as good as Champ Bailey. Portis will be the focal point of the offense. A CB is almost never the focal point of the D, unless his name is Deion Sanders and the year is 1995. Under Gregg Williams, our D will be better this year minus Champ.

The new contract underscores the FO's faith in Portis. Now he won't come in with a bad attitude (hopefully). Still don't know why we had to give up a second rounder though.

I don't think you can really judge the contract until you see the details of it. Is it heavily backloaded? Just knowing that it's 8 years, $50 million isn't enough

Excellent point smootsmack. It's hard to argue that Portis isn't one of the premier backs in football, and probably the best back in the NFC, now. This contract may look like a killer, but understand that the bonus money is tiered - which means that we aren't on the hook for $17 million out of the gate. With tiered bonuses, and backloaded salaries, the only big numbers are the ones the agents brag about.

[QUOTE=smootsmack]I don't think you can really judge the contract until you see the details of it. Is it heavily backloaded? Just knowing that it's 8 years, $50 million isn't enough[/QUOTE]

Sure it is....the details will give us a better idea of whether its backloaded or not, but paying 6.5 million a year for a back that was to make less than a million over the next two seasons (he said he wouldn't hold out of camp) seems a little stupid. What happenned to all of our leverage? It went right out the window and we handed out the biggest contract for a RB in NFL history.

Hey guys, you think Portis will forget what we did for him when it's time to restructure? One thing the skins have done a great job at is keeping up with the salary cap. Portis knows that our FO has faith in him and he will play his guts out. When it comes down to us needing cash room he'll re-work his deal.

I hope you're right. Portis seems like a great back, but I'm think he values money more than respect from our FO. Maybe I'm wrong.

The guys on ESPN News were saying that we need to see to details of the contract. Mort thinks it's structured to be Cap friendly, like Brunnell's.

But I still think it's too much.

Yeah, I dont think we need to jump to conclusions until we hear the details of the contract. Who on here is our salary cap expert, I have seen a few great posts analyzing the cap...anybody want to take the first stab at this for us?

I'm going to agree with that. I dont think we can really worry about it until we see the actual contract. If its heavly backloaded and his production declines, then we cna release him without a huge penlty, am I right?

In order to thoroughly examine the deal, we do need to see how the bonuses are structured (i.e. are bonuses roster bonuses or incentive based bonuses?). I believe that the bonuses are both incentive and roster-based.

However, the total value of the deal is big enough to tell one of two things; either Portis will take about 6 million dollars a year out of the cap, or the deal is backloaded. If the deal is backloaded (as was Stephen Davis' $90 million deal back in 2000), we are going to have to either release Portis at the point at which his cap figure becomes untenable, or we will have to renegotiate the deal.

While parties can always renegotiate a deal, obviously both parties must be amenable to such a deal. While Arrington, Trotter, and Samuels have all restructured their deals to help our cap situation, at a certain point the player says, I can get a lot of money on the market in free agency and I'm not going to restructure anymore (i.e. Chris Samuels).

So, we'll have to see how it is structured to see how cap friendly it is.

BUT, you do not need to see the deal to know that it wasn't the best deal. I say that because again Portis was scheduled to make 350K next year and 450K the following year - 800K over 2 years!!!!! Moreover, Portis already said that he would go to camp with or without a new deal so it was not as though we HAD to sign Portis to a big deal.

No matter how the deal is structured, we will undoubtedly have given Portis one of, if not the most, lucrative deals ever given to a back. If we had all the leverage, why did we rush to complete a deal? If we had all the leverage, why the huge overall contract value? Those are two questions I doubt a close look at the contract will answer.

Whether the deal is backloaded or not has no impact on the salary cap hit we'd take if he is cut. The cap hit is based on how much of the pro-rated bonus money is left over.

The pro-rated bonus details are unknown. That is something that we have to look at.

HOWEVER, all this would be a moot point if Portis turns out to be a very good back and we want to keep him for awhile. If we want to keep him, we need to look at the salaries (excluding the bonuses) provided by the deal. So, with $50 million dollar deal over eight years, we are going to pay roughly 6.5 million a year on average for Portis. If it's backloaded and we want to keep him we could be faced with the same situation we dealt with when we evaluated the feasibility of keeping Stephen Davis two years ago. If it's not backloaded, we still assume a huge cap hit for the next 8 years (huge meaning roughly 6.5 million). Either way, if Portis works out, we are going to run into cap problems in the next few years.

The reason that we gave Denver a 2nd rounder in the deal was b/c it was understood between the two teams that whoever signed Bailey would have significantly less cap room than the team that pays Portis. By trading Champand signing Portis to a "cap-friendly" deal we will be able to sign more free agents than they will therefore, they would need more draft picks this year to make the deal fair.
- I think that makes sense

I really don't believe that there is such a thing as a "cap friendly" deal.

#1 Backloading a deal
Sure a deal can be "cap friendly" (a euphemism for cheap) in the early years, however then it can become expensive (aka backloaded) and therefore "cap unfriendly." So the deal isn't so much cap friendly as it is short-sighted; it's nice in the beginning but in the end it really hurts.


#2 Big Signing Bonus
Another way a deal can be "cap friendly" is if the signing bonus is fairly large. Typically, the larger the signing bonus, the smaller the total value of the contract. The idea being that if you guarantee a large portion of the contract, the contract shouldn't have to be as large. For example, wheras you can sign a player to a five year deal for $30 million with a $4 million signing bonus (averaging $6 million per year), you might be able to sign him tp a five year deal for $22 million if you give him a $7 million bonus (averaging $4.2 million per year). So, a deal with a big signing bonus isn't as much cap friendly as it is a bargain.

However, if you give a player a large signing bonus, you incur the risk of having your new signee injured or turn out to be a bust. If the player is injured and can't play football or is cut for being a bust, you're SOL because the bonus still counts against the team's cap figure even though the player isn't even on the roster.

#3 Tiered Signing Bonus
Another way the deal can be "cap friendly" is by making a portion of the signing bonus "tiered." This simply means that the bonus is not payable all at once. It can be contingent on a variety of factors (i.e. is he still on the roster bonus - roster bonus - or did he reach certain goals - incentive bonus). This isn't so much cap friendly as it is a way to protect yourself if your newly acquired player is injured or turns out to be a bust. If they are not on the roster (for reasons of injury of lack of performance), they can be cut and the "tiered" portion of the bonus is not held against the team's cap figure AFTER the player is no longer on the team's roster.

What I'm basically trying to say is that there are ways to make a contract fit your concerns (i.e. protection against the player being a bust or getting injured), but there is no way to make a HUGE deal (like Portis') truly cap friendly. Trying to cheat the cap is like cheating on a bunch of tests....it'll get you by for awhile, but eventually it catches up to you and really screws you.

The 4 reasons I don't know if I like this deal...

1) The 2nd round pick. It should be a straight up swap.

2) We didn't HAVE to do this contract right now. Why not wait until AFTER free agency, then say, hey, thsi is all we have left to offer right now, Clint'? With what he was set to be paiod, he would have settled for FAR less, just to pay off his Hummer2! ;)

...and the one no one has mentioned yet...

3) Rosenhaus is Jevon Kearse's agent. We just upped his asking price by overpaying Portis. Kearse is already asking for too much and we certainly didn't help ourselves negotiate a lower price for him.

4) Salary Cap? Am i the ignorant one here or... isn't overpaying for a 34-year old, possible BACKUP QB, having the highest paid running back in NFL history, and signing a "fragile" DE who wants an 18 million dollar signing bonus NOT going to absolutely KILL us in 2-3-4 years?? Or do we just not give a dman about the future??

The two reasons I am OK with it...

His deal IS cheaper than what we offered Champ AND it is 8 years long... meaning, he COULD be our man, our legend, our all-time great RB for the next 8 years! (I believe that would be the longest tenure of any 'Skins back in team history).... I hope it works out as such.

I acutally did mention that Kearse's agent is Drew Rosenhaus. What I said however, was that I am hoping that there is a quid pro quo and we get Kearse for $25 over three years. :D

I hear ya Ramsey... my point is... Rosenhaus has all the room in the world to say, hey, you just paid my client Portis all this money... so market value must be on the rise for ALL positions. He'll compare how Kearse is "the defensive Clinton Porits" and how he desrves a bonus Clint's size or more!


all I can say is.... yikes.

We also have all the leverage in the world. Kearse wants to play for Williams, Kearse knows Washington is assembling an amazing staff of coaches and players. He wants to win, he'll take a paycut for that.

Portis is also 22. Kearse isn't.

This whole post sounds like it's all a done deal. What if Champ decides against the deal? Is it back to the drawing board?
Also, maybe our FO talked to Portis before the deal and worked out some arrangement for the future where he would agree to restructure his contract if we gave him a huge one to begin with. ???

They already agree'd in princaple and Denver has already called a Press Conference for thursday ( first day trades can be announced), draw your own conclusions.... my conculsion is Champ will be a Bronco.

Here is my take:

1) I agree, I don't like giving up the second rounder...but a) since Champ would have been out of here for nothing at some point, I can live with getting a potential 2,000 yard RB in return. b) I'm hoping the Skins move someone to get the 2nd (or a 3rd rounder) back and c) the bottom line is we're getting an awesome offensive weapon and I can overlook the pick going.

2) We didn't have to do the contract, but I'm glad we did. This means Portis won't bring any baggage or negative feelings about getting his contract worked out. We're showing we wanted him here, he's got to like that and be enthusiastic to play here.

3) Is Kearse really someone to go ape over? If he's healthy he'd be a great pickup, but with his injury problems there might be other options out there...maybe the Skins have already passed him over...who knows?

4) I'm going to trust that the Redskins know what they're doing with the Cap.

I am sort of hoping (sort of because I LOVE Taylor) that we trade down to grab Will Smith or Kenechi Udeze in the middle of the first round instead of getting Kearse. I think two good DTs like Cornelius Griffin and Rod Coleman will help our pass rush. Udeze and Smith are pass rush specialists and though they are going to be rookies, I have VERY mixed feelings about getting Kearse in FA.

Hopefully the Skins will protect themselves with Kearse by having an incentive based bonus option (i.e. he's got to start in 14 games per season to get 100% of the bonus) if they do pick him up.

I don't undrstand how some people are worried about the ramifacations of this Portis deal on the salary cap 4 or 5 years down the road...are you people kiding me??? we have made the playoffs once in 12 years, haven't even sniffed them for the past 3. so our offense picks up a 22 year old franchise back who is only the 3rd player to rush for 3,000 yards out the gate and some people don't like it??????

We picked these players up, and still managed to be $13m under the cap...stop worrying about 4-5 years form now and lets make a run at another Super Bowl while we still have Gibbs to lead us there. I'll worry about the future after I finish my glass of champagne while looking at Gibbs hoist the Lombardi Trophy over his head

as far as freeing up cap room, does anyone know if any progress has been made for getting samuels to restructure his contract or his his agent still saying nothing's changing until ramsey is traded? we need to free up atleast 4-5 million from his 8+ million dollor cap figure this year. I think we honestly won't have to pay Kearse an extrodinary amount of money and I think some people are not really seeing how much he wants to play for Williams again. I mean he was talking about signing with him before this past season began and I think that bargaining chip will help out immensely. and if that fails winstrom is cheaper and only a slightly lower grade of talent, leaving cap room to sign some of the underrated tackles like coleman and smith. and anyone making the comparisions to portis' and davis' contract a few years ago need to remember that davis' was only one year longer but over 40 million more in the contract. and that was when davis was in his late 20's if I remember right. the cap figures will probably be nowhere similar and like it was said on here before, because he was given this contract when it didn't need to be done should show Portis he is wanted by the organization and might be more open to redoing his contract down the road if need be.

[QUOTE=beg8878]I don't undrstand how some people are worried about the ramifacations of this Portis deal on the salary cap 4 or 5 years down the road...are you people kiding me??? we have made the playoffs once in 12 years, haven't even sniffed them for the past 3. so our offense picks up a 22 year old franchise back who is only the 3rd player to rush for 3,000 yards out the gate and some people don't like it??????

We picked these players up, and still managed to be $13m under the cap...stop worrying about 4-5 years form now and lets make a run at another Super Bowl while we still have Gibbs to lead us there. I'll worry about the future after I finish my glass of champagne while looking at Gibbs hoist the Lombardi Trophy over his head[/QUOTE]

I completely agree. There is so much parity in the league and every year a new team emerges, lately though it's never the Redskins. Why not make a run now? We shouldn't be worried about what [I]might[/I] happen to Portis and his contract five or six years down the road.

Would anyone not be willing to trade a Super Bowl title for cap problems 4-5 years down the road??

That being said I don't think there will be significant cap problems down the road. Snyder has been spending like this since he got here, and we were supposed to already be in cap hell. Yet when you take a look around the league, there are many teams in much, much worse shape cap wise year in and year out. And the 'Skins are sitting here at $11M [i]under[/i]. Go figure.

If we won a Super Bowl once in the next 3 years, and made the playoffs a couple times around then, that would be well worth the cap trouble in 4-5 years. I just want to see this team win a superbowl.

[QUOTE=Mattyk72]Would anyone not be willing to trade a Super Bowl title for cap problems 4-5 years down the road??[/QUOTE]

To be honest, at this point I might b ewilling to trade a few playoff appearences for cap problems down the road

Good point Matty. The man is trying to do everything within his power to win. You can't fault him for that.

I'd blow up the team in 2005 if it meant a Super Bowl victory this year. That's what they play the games for. Just my opinion. It's been a long time and I'm hungry.