It's not going to hit the cap that hard. That's the entire reason why everyone wants to get into long term deals. The player gets their guaranteed money up front. The team gets to spread out the cap hit over the life of the contract.



Say JG gets an $18 million signing bonus on a $60 million contract over 6 years. The cap hit of the signing bonus is only $3 million a year. But JG gets his $18 million on signing day. Salary in years one, two, and three may be $2, $2, $2 million for example. So the cap hit is $5 million per year for the first three years. Then it escalates so that the salary the last year is $15 million.



But guess what? It's only a 3 year contract. After three years (or four) the team can either work with JG to restructure, or cut him and take the hit on the rest of the signing bonus (which is $9 or $6 million at that point). Depending on the release date, it could be spread over two years of dead money.



So everyone wins. It's the "richest" TE contract in history. It "averages" $10 million a year. It's actually a 3 year $24 million contract, with $20 million guaranteed. And the cap hit over the first three years is $5 million instead of $7 million, $8.4 million, and then the crazy QB number if the tag were to go into the third year ($17 million or something like that).



But no one is going to bother to blink this early in the process. The Saints have the leverage of round one (the tag) and round two (tagged as a TE). Round three is the arbitration on the grievance that should be filed by this time tomorrow. And then the waiting game until sometime in July.



And BTW any team in the NFL that's truly willing to give up two FRDP and a huge contract for a TE is foolish. Franchise players get tagged every year. How many of them actually get signed away? There's a reason for that.



All the tag does is keep both sides in the ring for another 4 months trying to work out a contract. Everyone has their job to do. The Saints need to get the best value out of the situation. JG's agent's job is to extract the most money for his client. But just like Brees a couple of years ago, the Saints want the player and the player wants to play for the Saints. So in the end, they will work it out.



I honestly think that the fantasy football here is that some team is going to be stupid or desperate enough to pull the trigger on JG under these conditions.



It's going to be a long offseason. So may as well hunker down.



SFIAH