REPORT: DeAndre Hopkins Wants Offer Similar to Raven's Contract with Odell Beckham Jr.
NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Titans are one of the main contenders in the free-agent fight for DeAndre Hopkins and according to a recent report from Michael Lombardi while doing an appearance on the Pat McAfee show, Hopkins wants a contract similar to the one Odell Beckham Jr. got from the Baltimore Ravens this offseason.
Let's waste no time because the obvious first step we need to take here is to examine the contract of Beckham Jr. Our answer is in the details of not only how much money the contract entails, but how the deal is structured.
Contract details provided by Spotrac.com
First, let's talk about the basics of how a salary-cap hit is achieved. You take the salary of a player and combine it with all of the bonuses they are receiving that season, add them together and then you have your cap hit.
The most common type of bonus is a signing bonus. As it sounds, it is the bonus money the player gets upon signing his contract. The signing bonus is split up among the years of the contract. A five-year deal would seen the bonus split five ways, a four-year deal split four ways and so on.
Now, we bring up void years. What the Ravens have done with Beckham Jr's contract, as seen above, is add four void years so that the one-year contract functions as a five-year contract for cap purposes.
From Beckham Jr's perspective, this is a one-year deal worth $15 million and he will be free to hit free agency again next year. The player is happy. The team is able to keep the player's cap hit low, while still paying them a sizeable amount.
Because Beckham Jr's contract includes five void years, his bonus of $13,835,000 is split up five ways resulting in only $2,767,000 of the total bonus being charged to the cap in 2023. Combine that with a low salary of $1,165,000 and Beckham Jr. got paid $15 million while only hitting the cap for less than $4 million.
It is a brilliant way to structure the contract, but of course, there is a downside to this method. Because the contract is a one-year deal, all of the remaining bonus money will combine as a dead cap hit in the following year.
Essentially, you are keeping the cost low in one season, but paying the rest of it the next season, without even having the player. Why would a team do this? Well, the answer is the same for anyone who has ever taken out a loan or advance, you don't have the money now, but you will in the future.
The Titans only have a little over $8 million in salary space, but next year they are set to have near $80 million in salary cap space. They could easily structure the deal exactly like Beckham's and potentially make it even richer.
If Hopkins does want a deal near Beckham Jr's, that is great news for the Titans, who are ideally situated to give him the exact same deal, down to the nuts and the bolts of the structure.
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