Trouble Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 The world will never know whether the Cowboys and Broncos impermissibly compared notes on their negotiations with receivers Dez Bryant and Demaryius Thomas, respectively. (The teams officially deny it.) Through their agents, the players definitely did.It’s permissible for players and agents to collude. In this specific case, coordination between Bryant and Thomas became a no-brainer because their agents, Tom Condon and Todd France, now work together at CAA.Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the two agents took full advantage of their new relationship to shake five-year, $70 million deals from two teams that, before Wednesday, hadn’t gotten close to the $14 million annual average that two years under the franchise tag dictated for both players.Despite the public chatter about Calvin Johnson’s contract and other veteran receiver deals, all that mattered for Bryant and Thomas was the money they would have made under the next two years of the franchise tag. It exceeded $28 million, putting the floor on a long-term average at $14 million and requiring that each received more than $28 million fully guaranteed over the first two years to make a long-term deal better than the tag.Both did much better than $28 million fully guaranteed over two years. Bryant has $32 million fully guaranteed now, with another $13 million fully guaranteed as of March 2016, roughly the same time that the Cowboys would have had to decide whether to apply the franchise tag again. He currently has $45 million guaranteed for injury; if the Cowboys decide to move on before the next $22 million vests, he’ll get $32 million for one year of play and become a free agent.Thomas has $35 million guaranteed now, with another $8.5 million shifting from injury-only to fully guaranteed in early 2017.As noted yesterday, it ultimately came down to comparing money to be made under the tag over the next two years to the value of the long-term deal. By coordinating, Condon and France were able to squeeze out a lot more than the $28-million-over-two-years line of demarcation between signing a long-term contract or simply playing under the tag. Their ability to permissibly collude helped make that happen.This doesn’t mean the Broncos and Cowboys didn’t at some point compare notes. It would be naive to assume collusion doesn’t happen among NFL teams; the question is whether anyone puts themselves in position to get caught doing it.In this case, it could be that the NFL Players Association seized on a shred of collusion evidence (i.e., the notion that Cowboys COO Stephen Jones told Bryant that Jones had spoken to Broncos G.M. John Elway about the receiver negotiations) as an effort to ensure that the Broncos and Cowboys wouldn’t collude in the critical hours leading up to Wednesday’s deadline for doing long-term deals.Which means that collusion among the players aimed at exposing potential collusion among the teams allowed the players to collude on Wednesday while preventing collusion by the teams.Good for Dez though.Jones was trying to screw him around. Atleast he got rid of the wording that in the deal that protected the cowboys vs injury. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trouble Posted July 16, 2015 Author Share Posted July 16, 2015 Ouch 15 mill..... Thats steep for a guy who has a bad wheel. No doubt Jones is elite but, he does get hurt alot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trouble Posted July 16, 2015 Author Share Posted July 16, 2015 I don't buy acupuncture works. Nobody is sticking me with 100 needles and thinking ill feel less stressed.Ill be more stressed than ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rave Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 Elite...top 1%...In order to call Jones "elite" he'd have to be the best WR in the league.That's just not true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest facelessman07 Posted July 16, 2015 Share Posted July 16, 2015 I don't buy acupuncture works. Nobody is sticking me with 100 needles and thinking ill feel less stressed.Ill be more stressed than ever.Some of the top medical institutions have begun to use acupuncture in cooperation with their normal protocol. For example, Duke University. They use it to help reduce nausea If you ever got the opportunity, try it. The needles don't hurt a bit. My old acupuncturist use to call the relaxed feeling "acu-stoned." Because you literally feel high. Not kidding, I love the feeling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Des-pool Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 I would be proud for Julio to make more than Dez, it's the right thing to do and only natural. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rave Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Julio is not worth more than Dez.Points win games not yards.When will you ******* figure that out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Des-pool Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Julio is worth twice as much as the mama beater. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trouble Posted July 18, 2015 Author Share Posted July 18, 2015 It was supposedly imminent for 16 days before finally getting done on the last day to do a long-term deal with a franchise-tagged player.So how does the Dez Bryant five-year, $70 million contract with the Cowboys break down?Glad you asked. Even if you didn’t. Here are the details:1. $20 million signing bonus ($7 million of it is deferred until March 2016);2. $3 million fully-guaranteed base salary for 2015;3. $9 million fully-guaranteed base salary for 2016 (the salary reduces by $500,000 if Bryant fails to complete offseason workouts);4. $13 million base salary for 2017, guaranteed for injury only at the time of signing and fully guaranteed if Bryant is on the roster the fifth day of the 2017 league year (the salary reduces by $500,000 if Bryant fails to complete offseason workouts);5. $12.5 million non-guaranteed base salary for 2018 (the salary reduces by $500,000 if Bryant fails to complete offseason workouts);6. $12.5 million non-guaranteed base salary for 2019 (the salary reduces by $500,000 if Bryant fails to complete offseason workouts).The cap numbers are $7 million in 2015, $13 million in 2016, $17 million in 2017, $16.5 million in 2018, and $16.5 million in 2019.As practical matter (and assuming he completes offseason workouts), Dez will make $32 million over two years, before the deal becomes a year-to-year proposition at $13 million for 2017, $12.5 million for 2018, and $12.5 million for 2019. The Cowboys need to make an early decision in 2017, but they’ll have more time in the last two seasons to decide whether to continue the deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest facelessman07 Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 IMHO, Julio is NOT worth more than Dez. Sorry, even my loyalty to the Falcons doesn't change that factShouldn't Dez make more, logically speaking, if he put up beast numbers last year with a QB that is not as good as Matt Ryan and a killer running game? Oh, you say the running game opens up the passing game? Well that running game didn't make Dez catch that many TD's the two years before when Demarco was nearly always injured and Dez was at times the sole producer for the Cowboys. Can we say that about Julio? No, because we had the "greatest show on turf part dos"Objectivity is my friend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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