(04-22-2024, 08:46 AM)SamusAranX Wrote: When I hear “team friendly” deal I don’t hear less money, I hear that the player is ok with spreading the money out so the cap has some breathing room.

In my opinion, "team friendly" has to mean less overall money.  Any long-term NFL contract has the ability to be shifted, and it's usually in the players favor to do it.  If you take a simple hypothetical contract where guaranteed money is 10M per year, and non-guaranteed is an additional 10 for 5 years"

Year 1: 10M guaranteed - 10M non-guaranteed
Year 2: 10M guaranteed - 10M non-guaranteed
Year 3: 10M guaranteed - 10M non-guaranteed
Year 4: 10M guaranteed - 10M non-guaranteed
Year 5: 10M guaranteed - 10M non-guaranteed

If a team decides it wants/needs extra money in year 3, they will take the 10 non-guaranteed salary, guarantee it then move it into the remaining years:

Year 1: 10M guaranteed - 10M non-guaranteed
Year 2: 10M guaranteed - 10M non-guaranteed
Year 3: 10M guaranteed - 2M non-guaranteed
Year 4: 14M guaranteed - 10M non-guaranteed
Year 5: 14M guaranteed - 10M non-guaranteed

The player likes it because they get more guaranteed money, the team likes it (for now) because they opened up 8M in salary cap space in year 3, but at the end of the day shifting the cap dollars just means you have to make it up later.  (This gets a little trickier with the total salary cap going up each year, but the point stays the same when comparing to other teams.)  The above is simply how ALL NFL contracts can work and adjusted per year.  

To me "team friendly" means that you're lowering the total amount of money (guaranteed and/or non-guaranteed) owed:

Year 1: 9M guaranteed - 9M non-guaranteed
Year 2: 9M guaranteed - 9M non-guaranteed
Year 3: 9M guaranteed - 9M non-guaranteed
Year 4: 9M guaranteed - 9M non-guaranteed
Year 5: 9M guaranteed - 9M non-guaranteed

In this case the team has an extra 10M during the contract duration to sign another long-term player.

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