The Cardinals converted $10.59MM of D.J. Humphries’ base salary into a signing bonus, as Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets. The move will free up more than $7MM in cap room, giving Arizona some much-needed flexibility in advance of Saturday’s roster deadline. When valuable vets become cap casualties, the Cardinals will have enough space to get involved.
Humphries, 26, agreed to a three-year, $45MM extension in February, making him the NFL’s fifth-highest-paid tackle at the time of signing. The deal gave Humphries some long-term security instead of playing on a one-year franchise tender at a similar ~$15MM rate. There isn’t much that changes for the former first-round pick – he’ll still receive $30MM over the first two years of the deal, a pact that contains more than 50% guaranteed cash.
Humphries has been battered, but the Cardinals are sold on him as Kyler Murray‘s blind-side protector for years to come. The Cardinals had not seen Humphries play 16 games until this past season. From 2017-18, he played five and nine, respectively. Knee issues sidelined Humphries during those slates, which came after a 2015 rookie season in which he was inactive throughout. Still, he stands as one of the most talented young tackles in the game, and one of Steve Keim‘s rare quality first-round picks.
Why don’t teams just pay huge bonuses and go w/ vet minimum salary on contracts? All they do is flip salary into bonuses anyways. This contract is 7 months old and already changed?
Could not give a more clear explanation of the myth of the salary cap. Team ‘we’re close to the limit, convert all salaries to bonuses!’
Because when you sign a player to a high salary, the cap ramifications are non existent when you cut that player. Why would a business willingly hand out free money when they can try to cover their own rear end by offering a higher salary…
I guess so. But none of those contracts are fully guaranteed. So guarantee 2 years for high end bonus and low salary. Then the rest of the years are voidable. Wouldn’t that fix it?
I learned this the hard way in madden haha