Twitter: Henry Melton's Contract Details

[jterrell]

Not a bad deal by Jerry and company. If he turns out to be a bad signing and they decide to cut him at the end of this season will there be any dead money involved or are the Cowboys only on the hook for up to 5 million as long as he is cut by the deadline?

Might be a simple answer but I don't like numbers and they don't like me.

Only on hook for 5m at max for entire season.
Can cut him in off-season and not owe him another cent.

 

[hornitosmonster]

Props to the front office. Well done

 

[waving monkey]

Waiting for typical response to this with the "cap hell" in future years clause in it.

give Jones credit? the hell you say. Some here would faint first

 

[DCBoysfan]

Thing is, Hatcher got $27 million for one year of great work after playing here for 8 years. Now Hatcher appears to be more durable than Melton since he has not missed any significant playing time, but that's a lot of money for a player who flashed for one year.

My guess is Melton wanted Hatcher money. Other teams wanted to give him a similar "look see" deal, and he was not going to get 8-10 million coming off an injury that kept him out most of last season. So he figured he may as well play close to home if that was the deal he was going to get. Just a guess . . .

That makes sense.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Don't use up all the genius in one post.

Lots of teams only guarantee a SB (which essentially occurs here in year 2).
That does mean it is a 1 year deal... nor that this is a 2 year deal.

This is a 1 or 4 year deal period.
They certainly could release him as they did Ratliff early and unexpectedly but only at a huge cap hit when they would get a discount to keep the player.

Again the 9m guaranteed divided by 3 leaves 6m in cap allocation which also probably equals his year 3 salary... so it would cost about the same to keep him or cut him year 3. Thus there is really no logical way this is a 2 year deal. It is irrational to suggest this is a two year deal and I am very confident you will in fact be the only person to ever suggest that.

I won't. I'll try my best to spread it out. It may well end up being a 4 year deal but based on what was reported earlier, I see no evidence of that. They could also go the other way on the 9 Million. Lets say they draft talent that shows promise, the team could simply escalate the 9 Million into 2015 and clear the books in order to set up for younger players on rookie contracts. I mean, a lot of things could happen that we don't know just yet.

 

[dragon_mikal]

Only on hook for 5m at max for entire season.
Can cut him in off-season and not owe him another cent.

Seems like a great deal...low risk with potentially high reward. Gotta give Jerry props for not jumping head first into the shallow end of the pool on this one.

Thanks for the info.

 

[big dog cowboy]

I would give credit to Marinelli as well. I don't think he would have signed if it weren't for his former coach.

A lot of truth in that but really doubt Marinelli contributed much to the final dollars being offered. Still it's clear he really helped getting Melton here good point.

 

[Little Jr]

can one of you cap gurus break down what the cap hit will be each year? If it s possible to do so.

 

[unionjack8]

can one of you cap gurus break down what the cap hit will be each year? If it s possible to do so.

Have we seen base salaries yet?

 

[JackWagon]

No doubt Dez will not come cheap what top WR do come cheap.

i just hope he lives up to that eventual contract. If he gets Fitzgerald and MegaTron money he better be making plays ... not having 2 catch games and disappearing in big games and at crunch time.

 

[Doomsday101]

i just hope he lives up to that eventual contract. If he gets Fitzgerald and MegaTron money he better be making plays ... not having 2 catch games and disappearing in big games and at crunch time.

I agree but to me that is what makes this deal good, Dallas is locked into 1 year and Melton has to go out and prove himself. He has the talent to be a top player and it will be Marinelli job to get the most out of him. Personally I think this is a very good deal for all parties. Melton goes to a system he knows very well and a coach he knows as he tries to earn the bigger deal, Dallas get a player who has played well enough to earn a spot on the Pro Bowl and is an athletic freak.

 

[Kaiser]

Waiting for typical response to this with the "cap hell" in future years clause in it.

They told me that if that idiot Jerry was running the cap Hatcher and Ware would count 14 Million against the 2014 Cap - and they were right!

(just not with Dallas)

 

[JackWagon]

I agree but to me that is what makes this deal good, Dallas is locked into 1 year and Melton has to go out and prove himself. He has the talent to be a top player and it will be Marinelli job to get the most out of him. Personally I think this is a very good deal for all parties. Melton goes to a system he knows very well and a coach he knows as he tries to earn the bigger deal, Dallas get a player who has played well enough to earn a spot on the Pro Bowl and is an athletic freak.

This will be great if he comes back off that ACL to a pro bowl caliber player. But here we go again betting on players that have been hurt recently (#50, #24, #9)

 

[Doomsday101]

This will be great if he comes back off that ACL to a pro bowl caliber player. But here we go again betting on players that have been hurt recently (#50, #24, #9)

ACL injuries are not that uncommon and with today’s sports medicine doctors are doing a much better job. I love to have players who never got hurt and outside of this ACL Melton has never been hurt. Dallas on a 1 year deal with a 3 year option in my view is damn good and really not sure why some seem unhappy with this. We have younger player in here who has some real talent and his rehab is on schedule

 

[Nightman]

ACL injuries are not that uncommon and with today’s sports medicine doctors are doing a much better job. I love to have players who never got hurt and outside of this ACL Melton has never been hurt. Dallas on a 1 year deal with a 3 year option in my view is damn good and really not sure why some seem unhappy with this. We have younger player in here who has some real talent and his rehab is on schedule

Hatcher was pretty invisible towards the end of the year. He had a couple nagging injuries from shouldering the load all year. I was also turned off from all the "pay me" stuff. I understand he earned it, but I didn't like it. I think that Ware, Ratliff, Spencer and Hatcher all got obsessed with their contracts and I'm glad we have moved on.

6-7 hungry 20somethings is better than 4-5 rich 30somethings. Draft a couple more Rushmen and we are looking pretty good on the DL.

 

[dallasdave]

• If he's on the roster the 1st league day of 2015, a 3 year $24M extension with $9M guaranteed vests.

Not a bad deal at all!

Nice deal, and good to see the Cowboys can do a one and done, if he doesn't work out.

 

[Nightman]

can one of you cap gurus break down what the cap hit will be each year? If it s possible to do so.

We haven't seen any of the breakdowns yet. Even the incentives for 2014 are important. If they are LTBE(likely to be earned) they count in 2014. If they are NLTBE(not likely to be earned) they will count in 2015. His cap hit in 2014 could be a low as 2-3m.

If it's a straight 3yr/24m extension with 9m guaranteed, Dallas could add a couple of voidable years to spread out the bonus or just do a straight 3yr breakdown, assuming the 9m is a signing/roster bonus

2015 4m salary 7m cap hit
2016 5m salary 8m cap hit
2017 6m salary 9m cap hit

 

[jterrell]

We haven't seen any of the breakdowns yet. Even the incentives for 2014 are important. If they are LTBE(likely to be earned) they count in 2014. If they are NLTBE(not likely to be earned) they will count in 2015. His cap hit in 2014 could be a low as 2-3m.

If it's a straight 3yr/24m extension with 9m guaranteed, Dallas could add a couple of voidable years to spread out the bonus or just do a straight 3yr breakdown, assuming the 9m is a signing/roster bonus

2015 4m salary 7m cap hit
2016 5m salary 8m cap hit
2017 6m salary 9m cap hit

Very likely that 2015 salary is low and that the incentives are classified NLTBE given the little playing time Melton had in 2013. 1 sack for instance is NLTBE.

I expect

2014: 2m hit 2m push to 2015
2015 8m SB, 1m base all guaranteed cap ~4.75M
2016 6m base cap ~8.5 if not adjusted down with restructure.
2017 8m base cap ~10.5 but not gonna happen without restructure.

 

[Kaiser]

Not that Broaddus is an authority but he does have access, he just said on Twitter that Melton's cap hit for 2014 is 2.75 Million. That is outstanding if true, for reference Hatcher got a 9MM signing bonus with 10.5MM of this salary guaranteed (only a 3.75 cap hit for this year however).

 

[MichaelWinicki]

According to Mikey... The 2014 cap hit is $3.5 mil...

It that is the figure, it leaves about $4 mil in cap space.

Could pick up another couple of players.