Quote:Would he have gotten nothing? Probably not. But more than what the Jaguars would have paid him? Probably not either. The team and Lewis probably agreed into something that works out for both of them; more than what Lewis would have gotten in the market had the Jags cut him out right but less than what his current contract guarantees.

 

And uh..if they changed the language of his contract to change a guarantee to incentive, then yeah, he took a pay cut.

 

Given that the team have zero need for additional cap space (we were at what? $30M after the Wiesnewski signing?), and there was not an extension involved, then yeah, I think it's a perfectly reasonable assumption that the purpose of this restructuring was to lower Lewis' salary this season.

I'm confident that when the details of this restructure come out, people are going to be sorely disappointed to discover that there probably isn't really a pay cut associated with it.  As I stated before, the more likely scenario is that they've changed the structure to incorporate more incentives, and I'm not even sure they'll be the kind that are unlikely to be earned.  That creates some additional cap room this year, but if he hits his targets, that money gets added back in.  This team isn't in need of more cap room.

 

Uh, if they changed the language to incentivize the contract, depending on what they put in there, the potential exists for him to make as much, if not more.  We'll see soon enough. 

---