The Indianapolis Colts reached an agreement on a three-year deal with pending free-agent defensive end Samson Ebukam on Tuesday, and now we have the contract details.
According to Aaron Wilson of Click2Houston, the contract is a three-year deal worth $24 million and can reach up to a max of $27 million with incentives. It also comes with $10.75 million guaranteed.
Here’s a full breakdown of the contract:
- Signing bonus: $9 million (guaranteed)
- 2023 base salary: $1.755 million (guaranteed)
- 2024 base salary: $4.225 million
- 2025 base salary: $6.49 million
- $30,000 per game active roster bonus annual ($510,000 for 17 games)
- $1 million roster bonus on fifth day of 2025 league year
- $1 million playtime, playoffs, sacks incentive for 2025
- $1 million base salary escalator for 2024 and 2025
This seems to be a pretty solid deal for the Colts. Ebukam won’t break the bank, and there are plenty of incentives for him to earn over the next three seasons.
It does differ a bit in how the Colts have typically conducted their contracts in free agency. As Kyle Rapoza pointed out, the team focused on using a larger signing bonus but lower Year 1 base salary to keep the first-year cap hit low while backloading the deal.
This is a change from previous years when the Colts would frontload the contract with large roster bonuses, which would create high cap hits early in the contract but would give them options to move off a player on the back end of the deal.
The Colts are pretty strongly deviating from how they’ve previously structured contracts under Ballard.
Using large signing bonuses, low year 1 salary to keep the 1st yr cap hit low, and backloading deals. Used to use roster bonuses to have large upfront payment hit cap year one https://t.co/yhyuQLb8Pw— Kyle Rapoza (@ColtscapKyle) March 15, 2023
Coming off a career year with the San Francisco 49ers, Ebukam is likely the replacement at the LEO position for pending free agent Yannick Ngakoue, who is almost certainly hitting the market now.
Ebukam is coming off his best season with the 49ers, registering career-highs in sacks (5.0), quarterback hits (13), tackles for loss (seven) and total pressures (43).
Keep up to date with the latest news, signings and rumors through our free agency tracker for the Colts.
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