MONDAY, 12:09pm: Pouncey’s deal is now official, according to the Dolphins (Twitter link). The extension, which locks the center up through the 2020 season, adds five new years to his existing 2015 contract — those five new years are worth just under $45MM, with the full six-year value coming in at $52.15MM.
FRIDAY, 8:38pm: Pouncey’s extension is a five-year deal, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (via Twitter). The contract is worth $52.15MM, per ESPN’s James Walker and Adam Schefter. and includes $22MM in guarantees and an $11MM signing bonus.
6:58pm: The Dolphins and Pouncey have agreed to an extension, tweets Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald. Details of the contract have not yet been released, but Salguero reports (Twitter link) that Pouncey will be the highest-paid center in the NFL.
12:46pm: Mike Pouncey appears set to remain with the Dolphins on a long-term extension, reports Omar Kelly of the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Terms of the impending agreement are not yet known, but Kelly reports they’re in the neighborhood of the $40MM extension Maurkice Pouncey received from the Steelers last year.
The Dolphins opted into Pouncey’s fifth-year option last May, which at the time guaranteed him just more than $7MM this season. This will likely lower his 2015 cap hit and guarantee the ex-first-rounder upwards of $13MM this season, reports Kelly.
After a return from an offseason hip injury that sidelined him for five games, the 25-year-old Pouncey made his second straight Pro Bowl last season despite shifting to right guard from his natural center role due to injuries on Miami’s front. The arrival of low-tier starting center J.D. Walton last month is not expected to deter Pouncey from moving back to the center position he occupied for the Dolphins from 2011 until midway through 2014.
Pro Football Focus (subscription required) did not prefer Pouncey’s guard work to his top-flight center resume, rating him as a below-average blocker for a line that’s allowed 100 sacks the past two campaigns.
Miami remains interested in finding guards to place alongside Pouncey, according to Kelly.
As of now, the Fins have more than $11MM worth of salary cap space. Should this extension come to fruition, it will give the Dolphins’ line two top-market contracts, with Branden Albert signed to a five-year, $47MM deal.