Due to the Cowboys salary cap situation they often use high signing bonuses for their players to reduce cap hits. This was no different for Orton who received $5.9 million in salary in 2012 of which $5 million came in the form of a signing bonus. Overall 47.6% of Orton’s entire contract was paid in that 2012 bonus. While the contract was initially panned as overspending just for the sake of overspending, Dallas may have assumed that in the worst case scenario Orton would be called into action for one full year. The $10.5 million total contract value would have been on par with signing a lower level starter like Ryan Fitzpatrick, so one season of play justified the entire three year investment. They expected him to be a Cowboy for three years for that purpose.
In addition to the $5 million bonus, Orton also converted $510,000 of his 2013 salary into a signing bonus to provide the Cowboys cap relief. As far as I know this bonus, which was paid as a signing rather than a guaranteed roster bonus, should be subject to forfeiture as well. If so that was a mistake by his agents to not receive the bonus using a different mechanism. Other types of prorated signing bonuses are usually only subject to forfeiture in the year they are earned rather than in the future years as well. Perhaps this bonus was protected but for the sake of this we will assume it is not.
Had this been a standard contract, Orton would have been deemed to have “earned” $3,588,332 of his bonus money. If he retired he would then be forced to repay the Cowboys $1,921,668, which is a pretty large sum of money. That number would represent about 26.5% of his earnings for the last two years. However, Dallas often does not use standard contracts and, for cap purposes, uses void seasons which are used as placeholders for signing bonus prorations.
Even though Orton would technically be a free agent in 2015, his contract is valid through 2016. The way the forfeiture rules are written Dallas should be able to recover money attributed to 2014, 2015, and 2016. That number is a whopping $3,382,500, or about 46.7% of his earnings over the last two seasons. If forced to repay back that money he would essentially have played the last two seasons for $1.9 million a year, which is a low wage for a capable veteran backup.
For salary cap purposes the retirement of Orton would work just like a cut. Once placed on the Reserve/Retired list Orton’s bonus money will accelerate onto the salary cap. Considering this would not occur until after June 1 the resulting cap charges would be $1,127,500 charge in 2014 and $2,255,000 charge in 2015. Orton’s current cap charge is $4,377,500 so in no way would a retirement hurt the Cowboys cap.
Following his retirement Dallas can seek repayment of his money tied to this season and the next two voidable seasons. Future money would not actually be repaid until the following June and once repaid Dallas will receive salary cap credits. Usually there is a one year delay in these credits so they would receive a $1.1275 million increase in their available cap space in 2015, 2016, and 2017 rather than 2014, 2015, and 2016. If Orton retires and refuses to pay the money back to the Cowboys the Cowboys can take the case through the Arbitration process. I’m not really sure what defense Orton could have other than the fact that money attributed to 2015 and 2016 should not be recollected from Dallas.
