Morgan out

The thing that helped us today was Draft knew all of Vick's tendancies and that helped us out on D big time!

 

If I'm understanding the contract details correctly from Gantt's article on the extension, Morgan got $6 million in bonus money up front, and will have $4 million more in a roster bonus due next year (probably in March) along with another $2 million from a roster bonus in 2007. I think only $1.2 million of that initial $6 million counted against this year's cap, which would obviously leave $4.8 million more if we decided to cut him. That would be a heavy blow to carry next season, and I imagine we can't wait until after June 1st to cut him because of the 2006 roster bonus, but that will depend upon when it kicks in. Of course, not cutting him means more and more bonus money kicks in along with escalating base salaries.

 

we'd eat that $4 mil for keeping him, but that doesn't escalate. For a $1 mil net gain one way or the other, I'll take Morgan being hurt a couple games.

And we could still keep Draft. We'd just have to immediately start him over Short, and then beg him to stay.


We're dicked.

 

Uhm ... it's more than that, though. If we keep him next year then he's going to cost us the rest of his bonus anyway, his '06 base (which is only 545k), and another $4 million from a roster bonus. And then if we keep him the year after that, it's the rest of his bonus, his '07 base (750k), and another $2 million from a roster bonus. There are no more bonuses that kick in after 2007 (just whatever is left from the first three), but his bases really start to escalate at that point ($2.85m in '08, $4.25m in '09, and $5.38m in '10).

So it's basically either cut him loose after the season and carry a $4.8 million cap penalty next year, or have more and more money keep piling up while we hope he gets healthy and starts playing up to his contract.