mapcow

more of a laugh.

mapcow

Hope he don't stub his toe on his way out.

AsylumGuido

AsylumGuido

I've got to agree with Thomas here. Duncan has turned into a complete hack.

AsylumGuido

It's because people are dense.

AsylumGuido

BakoSaint

Edit: Maybe this structure allows him to be designated as a Post-June-1 cut and a contract that voided automatically on day 3 of the league year would not have? If this is the key difference it would have been helpful if any of the twitter personalities or articles went to any effort to highlight it versus the million other factors for which an automatic void would have accomplished the same thing.

I am genuinely not sure what the point of Michael Thomas's elaborate contract structure is. It pays him giant insane bonuses if he is on the roster on the 3rd day of the league year, rather than simply having a void year. I believe any previous bonuses and salaries could have been prorated over 5 years even if it has been simply structured as a void year instead.

It has been presented in the past as a structure that would force the team to either cut him, or to negotiate a new contract had he played well in 2023. So it was not per se 'always a one year deal and he was gone' but at one point it was a one year deal with a plan to negotiate again after a year and possibly stay. But a void year or the contract simply expiring would have allowed renegotiation before release too, there is nothing special about crazy insane bonus triggers than uniquely allows future negotiations. I guess the contract expiring would have happened 48 hours sooner than a simple expiration, so slightly less time to renegotiate, but I am not sure how that little time should matter, unless the Saints wanted 48 hours to pursue other receivers and then maybe resign Thomas. But I believe a void year could be structured to void on the 3rd day of the league year too, Cousins is set to void on the second day without the bonus insanity.

Duncan is a Saints columnist and should probably know better but I would not blame everyone who is confused by this contract structure when I am not sure what its objectives and effects actually are versus adding a void on the same day. It appears to falsely make the Saints dead cap look lower since the player is technically under contract and tracking sites are not set up to handle it the same as a void or factor in the hypothetical bonus. It might make Thomas not count for compensatory pick formulas since it sets up a willing cut not expiration or void, which would hurt the Saints and slightly help Thomas, since other teams could sign him without hurting their chance of receiving comp picks. But if its an innovation in the favor of the player and against the team, I would credit Thomas and his agent with being innovative and our front office with finding a new way to be pushed over. I don't think it would affect whether or not we could have franchise tagged Thomas if he had a career year, I think he would have been untaggable just the same as long as the void was set to trigger a day after the start of the league year, as Kirk Cousins does. They could also simply have inserted a no franchise tag clause into the deal like Danielle Hunter has.

The structure would also seem to carry some black swan risk for the Saints. What would happen if for some reason the team could not send in the paperwork and the bonus triggered? This happened once with an agent failing to send in paperwork to void TO's contract. I assume the contract had no protection for injury, but in certain limited cases if Thomas had been in a legal dispute with the team or if there was a national emergency or something, things could go wrong. The automatic void on the same day just seems safer and simpler.

So if there is no reason for MT's complicated contract structure as compared to an automatic void on the same day, and its only point is to be deliberately confusing, I can't totally blame everyone who is confused.

AsylumGuido

Explanation for the "elaborate contract structure".

K Major

All facts.

That 4 season stretch at the beginning of his career was fire though, but the LAST 3 years, Michael Thomas hasn't done much to help the Saints on Sundays.

As you stated, move on.

mapcow

should've made him a free agent, ex-saint over 3 years ago. cut bait.