RB Ezekiel Elliott, Extension
6-yr, $90 million | $28M fully guaranteed | $50M total guaranteed
Escape Year: 2023
Elliott’s extension added six years on top of the two remaining seasons where he was set to make more than $12.9 million, making the total amount of his deal a whopping 8-year, $103 million.
In reality though, the team can escape after 2022, Elliott’s mythical Age 27 season. At that point, he’d have just $6.7 million in dead money and the team could escape the final four years of his eight year deal.
LB Jaylon Smith, Extension
5-yr, $63.75 million | $19M fully guaranteed | $35.4M total guaranteed
Escape Year: 2023
Smith had a year remaining on his deal and would have been a restricted free agent in 2020, making this a seven-year deal in totality. Dallas paying Elliott two years early made sense because of his leverage. They did it for Smith simply because they like the guy.
As much as I have an issue with the amount of resources the Cowboys have poured into the oft-injured and performance-dynamic position, this extension wasn’t as egregious a deal as it could have been, for a couple of reasons.
First, his cap number for the first two years, 2019 and 2020 only went up by $3.5 million total with the allocation of the $13 million in bonuses. Also, unlike other deals when the next year’s salary becomes gauaranteed, Smith’s 2021 and 2022 guarantees don’t trigger until the new league year in each of those seasons. Dallas can decide early in 2022 that he isn’t in their plans and cut bait, chopping off $43.5 million in base salary for the final four years. The dead money hit of $6.8 million would be a bit much, but could be divided into $2.6 million and $4.2 million hits in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
Continue…
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