Originally Posted by
RuthlessBurgher
We've all been comparing Wallace to other receivers (makes sense, right?).
The number's being passed around:
Larry Fitzgerald: 8 years, $128 million ($50 million guaranteed)
Vincent Jackson: 5 years, $55,555,555*** ($26 million guaranteed)
DeSean Jackson: 5 years, $47 million ($15 million guaranteed)
Marques Colston: 5 years, $36.3 million ($17.7 million guaranteed)
***Notice that the total value of VJax's contract is ocho cincos.
People have been saying that we have never paid such big dollars to a receiver.
Well, instead of comparing Wallace to other receivers around the league, let's compare him to other Steelers who signed extensions within the last year.
LaMarr Woodley: 6 years, $61.5 million ($22.5 million guaranteed, including a $13 million signing bonus)
Troy Polamalu: 4 years, $36.5 million ($10.55 million signing bonus)
Lawrence Timmons: 6 years, $50 million ($11 million signing bonus)
Ike Taylor: 4 years, $28 million ($7.25 million signing bonus)
In terms of overall importance to the team, where does a top-notch deep threat entering the prime of his NFL career rank in terms of overall importance to the team when compared to the two linebackers entering the primes of their careers or the two members of the secondary who are now over the age of 30?
I know many will hold firm to their notion that "anything over $8 million and we should send him packing," but if you compare him to other Steelers who got extensions recently, doesn't it seem like Wallace should be slotted somewhere between Timmons and Polamalu in the middle of those 4 contracts?
I suggested a while back that Mike Wallace's contract could end up looking like Sidney Crosby's last contract (which he should be extending next week for 10 more years). Sid's last deal was for 5 years, $43.5 million ($8.7 million per year). That is essentially right smack dab in between the Timmons and Polamalu deals.
The sticking point could be the amount of the signing bonus, which if we followed precedent from last year would be in the neighborhood of $11 million or so. That would give us a yearly cap hit of $2.2 worth of signing bonus...if we gave him a veteran minimum salary ($750,000) in year one, his overall cap hit would be $2.95 million for this season, which would fit under the cap as currently constituted (see the other thread which shows our current cap space as $3.58 million). If Wallace's contract was structured as such, that would leave us with $630,000 after a Wallace 5 year, $43.5 dollar extension with an $11 million signing bonus (which would be the second fewest in the league, but still a shade more than Baltimore's $606,000 of available cap space as we speak).
If we wanted to sign Max Starks if his rehab progresses as we move through camp and the preseason, then we'd have to cut Jon Scott in order to make room (but we knew that already...if we had a healthy Max, there would be no need for Jon Scott anyway).
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