Twitter: Archer: Breakdown of Zeke's Contract

[Zordon]

A breakdown of Ezekiel Elliott’s eight-year, $102.9 million deal with the Dallas Cowboys:

Signing bonus - $7.5 million

2019 base salary - $752,137
2020 base salary - $6.8 million ($13 million option bonus)
2021 base salary - $9.6 million
2022 base salary - $12.4 million
2023 base salary - $10.9 million
2024 base salary - $10 million
2025 base salary - $15.4 million
2026 base salary - $16.6 million

Note: The first two years of the deal are fully guaranteed, totaling $28 million at signing. The base salaries in 2021 and 2022 become fully guaranteed on the fifth day of the league years in 2020 and 2021.

 

[QuincyCarterEra]

 

[JustDezIt]

looks good to me

 

[Jipper]

from the looks of this, it is a very good contract structure and gives both parties what they wanted....kudos to the FO

 

[pansophy]

I mean are those last two years there just so Zeke can say he is the highest ever paid running back? Unlikely he sees that money at 30 years old. Seems like a fantastic deal for us.

 

[QuincyCarterEra]

 

[movaughn88]

I don't see how anyone can see this other than a great win for the Cowboys and a decent one for Zeke in terms of security.

Unless I'm missing something completely, as of *right now* this is a 4 year/$50.1m deal (I'll assume we pick up 2021 and 2022 but even that's not guaranteed for something awful happening on or off the field) for an AAV of those 4 years of $12.5m.

Even the 2023 and 2024 years are at a lower annual value around $10.5m average.

Edit: To compare, with his old deal for the next 2 years plus franchise tag of ~$15m in 2021, his AAV over those three years would have been $9.3m

Edit 2: Like @Aerolithe_Lion points out, if you added a second franchise (20% more in 2022) the AAV of that 4 years would have been $11.5m. This isn't a huge raise from that terrible situation and the team gets two cheap years under control in '23 and '24

 

[Zordon]

So cut bait after 2023 season with a minimal cap hit (if we don't restructure)? He'll be 28 at that time. I'm good with that.

 

[QuincyCarterEra]

So cut bait after 2023 season with a minimal cap hit (if we don't restructure)? He'll be 28 at that time. I'm good with that.

Have CAP hits of $15M and $16.5M the last two years of deal for a runningback, and THEN take on $6.7M(not minimal) dead CAP to cut him for a runningback to not play for us. And in those last years he will have depreciated even more as a player given all his touches at that point.

Oh boy. Y'all strap in.

 

[Plankton]

As it is with any contract, the devil is in the details.

And, in this contract, after 2023, the Cowboys can escape with only $2.6M of dead money. $6.7M of dead money if they cut bait after four years.

Yes, it's a lot of money for a RB. But, it's pretty team friendly when looking at it objectively.

 

[uvaballa]

Cowboys got the better end of the deal for sure.

 

[Direwolf63]

So the team can get out in 4 years with a $6.7M cap hit

Not too bad

He will never see the $32M in the last 2 years of the deal less he's still a 1,400 yard a year RB

 

[QuincyCarterEra]

 

[AmericanCowboy]

How anyone says that we didn’t get screwed in this deal is beyond me.

This is NOT a win for the cowboys.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

This is a major win for Jerry and Stephen, for the team and really even for Zeke. This is actually much less then I thought he would get but it's about what I thought he was worth. Now, I don't think that it's impossible that we see another renegotiation at some point either. I mean, this is really a 4 year deal but I could see the team reevaluating if they needed to or wanted to.

If this is the real deal, I'm really happy with this.

 

[Zordon]

Have CAP hits of $15M and $16.5M the last two years of deal for a runningback, and THEN take on $6.7M(not minimal) dead CAP to cut him for a runningback to not play for us. And in those last years he will have depreciated even more as a player given all his touches at that point.

Oh boy. Y'all strap in.

You dont like the deal?

He pretty much got a raise for the final 2 years of his rookie contract and a 2 year extension. This is pretty good.

 

[Aerolithe_Lion]

I don't see how anyone can see this other than an great win for the Cowboys and a decent one for Zeke in terms of security.

Unless I'm missing something completely, as of *right now* this is a 4 year/$50.1m deal (I'll assume we pick up 2021 and 2022 but even that's not guaranteed for something awful happening on or off the field) for an AAV of those 4 years of $12.5m.

Even the 2023 and 2024 years are at a lower annual value around $10.5m average.

Edit: To compare, with his old deal for the next 2 years plus franchise tag of ~$15m in 2021, his AAV over those years would have been $9.3m

Well, you had him under contract for 2 years and then 2 franchise tags were possible, so you gave him a contract with still 4 years of team control left because he pouted.

You can say the contract works in Dallas’s favor, but the whims situation being a great win is a stretch.

 

[CowboyStar88]

How can anyone be upset with this deal?

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Well, you had him under contract for 2 years and then 2 franchise tags were possible, so you gave him a contract with still 4 years of team control left because he pouted.

You can say the contract works in Dallas’s favor, but the whims situation being a great win is a stretch.

This is true, but do you want to use the tag on Zeke now? I mean, you might need that thing soon. I don't have a problem with Zeke getting paid. I just didn't want to see a crazy deal like the one Todd Gurley got. That was a really bad deal. I really like this deal guys. I just see this as a real team win and remember, we freed up 5.7 mil this year on the Collins restructure deal.

 

[QuincyCarterEra]

You dont like the deal?

He pretty much got a raise for the final 2 years of his rookie contract and a 2 year extension. This is pretty good.

Not even a little bit.

Yes we gave Zeke a raise his last two years that we already had him under contract for, and then we get to take on $31.5M of CAP hits the two years after that for his extension(highest AAV in the league by a mile) so then we could possibly cut him and still have to eat $6.5M dead cap.

What did the team gain from this? I mean we did extend him two years early and multiple off field issues.