NOTE the guaranteed part of Brown's contract:
Antonio Brown signed a 4 year, $68,000,000 contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers, including a $19,000,000 signing bonus, $19,000,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $17,000,000. In 2017, Brown will earn a base salary of $910,000 and a signing bonus of $19,000,000. Brown has a cap hit of $13,618,333 while his dead money value is $27,908,333.
It's a pretty good contract. Nearly $13M of that dead cap money is off the books after 2017. He's got a $6M roster bonus in 2018 and a $2.5M roster bonus in 2019 that will most certainly be paid. The roster bonuses aren't guaranteed, but they aren't going to cut him that early on in that contract, so that basically means his salaries for those years are also guaranteed. That guaranteed number is misleading. It's a prove yourself each year contract, but it's also structured in such a way that the Steelers aren't likely to cut him in the first 3 years of it. After the first 3 years, his cap numbers come down to $15.1M and $16.3M in the final two seasons. They could cut him in either of those two years for a good savings if he falls off for whatever reason. He'll be 32 starting that 4th year of his contract, so his game may fall off by then.
I think you would want to sign Hopkins on a deal much more like what Julio Jones got when he was 26.
Julio signed a 5 year deal, $71.25M deal with $41M in possible guarantees ($35.5M initially guaranteed). The Falcons gave Julio a $12M signing bonus with roster bonuses of $7.5M in 2015 and $4M in 2016. That was all guaranteed, along with his 2015 base salary of $2.5M in 2015 and $9.5M in 2016. His cap hits were $12.4M in 2015 and $15.9M in 2016. His 2017 salary of $11.5M becomes guaranteed on March 11th of this year. That type of structure would work better with Hopkins, although I would want them to try to get the numbers overall to be lower. I like their use of guaranteed roster bonuses in the first 2 years to eat up some of that guaranteed money, so later on in his contract they can get rid of him if need be. Pay the guy as much as you can in guarantees in the first 2 years, while keeping the cap hit manageable, because you know you are going to have him on your team for those 2 years anyway. Great thing about those roster bonuses is that you don't have to spread them out against the cap over the course of the contract like the signing bonus. Julio's cap hits are manageable later on in his deal ($13.9M, $12.9M, and $14.9M in the last 3 years). He's also got only $2.4M accounting toward his cap hit each year in signing bonuses, which keep his dead cap pretty low later on.
http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/atlanta-falcons/julio-jones-7721/
Compare that structure with that of Dez Bryant's contract:
The Cowboys gave Dez a 5 year, $70M with a $20M signing bonus and $45M of guaranteed money. They structured his guarantees much like Julio in his 2015, 2016 and 2017 base salaries (2017 becomes guaranteed on March 13th of this year), as well as the signing bonus, except they skipped the roster bonuses and didn't use them. They did some hoopla with the way his signing bonus is paid to him, but it has no impact on the cap. His initial cap hit was $7M in 2015, then $13M in 2016. The problem with the contract is now that he's past those first 2 years, he has cap hits of $17M and twice $16.5M over his last three years. In addition, his signing bonuses account for $4M of his cap figure every year and thus toward his dead cap. So, he's more expensive than Julio in regards to cap figure in these last 3 years and he's also got more dead money on his contract.
http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/dallas-cowboys/dez-bryant-6533/
Two guys who got similar money than what I think Hopkins will get, but two contracts that are structured differently. I'd like to see the Texans use the roster bonus trick on Hopkins so as to keep his signing bonus prorations down, particularly for the benefit to the team in the latter part of his deal if they feel he isn't worth that contract at that time.
