The beautiful world of contracts
I may be naive on the point, but a lot of the time, it seems that restructuring is used as a corrective mechanism for faulty (or cautious) value assessment, as well as to help out with management's planning. Other times, you move money around for reasons you had no idea you would have to face when the original contract is written. As we've all heard, lots of contracts have years written in that "could" happen, in the same way that winged monkies could start flying out of my hindquarters. I call these NLTO (Not Likely To Occur) contract years.
I THINK (someone correct if wrong,) that Dillon's first deal was at a bargain basement price, if Dillon really were the back he use to be. Then he went out and had a great 2004 campaign, and got the long-term deal, paying him as befits his contribution. This year it looks like he's getting a shot across the bow regarding perceived value versus real value (3 mill in bonus money earlier this year) - "if you show us this isn't the downslope, we'll pay you like this isn't the downslope."
Individual contracts can be laden with the kinds of "incentives" we're familiar with, the LTBE and NLTBE varieties. In fact 04 might have been such a hot year for Dillon because his base dollars were augmented to the hilt with "NLTBE" (for mortals) incentives. I don't think he kicked and screamed about having to "show" it again. And maybe I have too jaundiced an eye, but it's all business. Right now, nobody would pick up Corey for a very high base salary, or much guaranteed money. Age-risk, an off year, injury risk. So yeah he could refuse to do the deal, but then the Pats could just release him. Then what does he end up with?
This looks like a more cordial way of doing business, where everyone is comfortable with the assessments, and there's no real threat that Dillon would produce eye-popping numbers without some kind of reward, probably the incentives clauses.
To talk outside of this specific case, the contract itself is an incentive mechanism, outside those devices. They're structured to reflect payment scenarios, "if-thens." Of course, if you're on the hook for big bucks and the player does not produce, the legal remedy to a bad year that leaves some doubt, is to say "um, thanks, it's been great, but...."
Whereas the remedy if you don't want to go to the wall is to approach the player about re-doing the deal.
I don't know how a player feels when the money guy sits him down and says, "look. You didn't do what we thought you'd do..." But it's another harsh fact of NFL life that it can happen at any time.
And as we know, plenty of times the team just comes to you and says "I'd gladly pay you tomorrow for a cheeseburger today" to re-do the deal, or swaps less guaranteed money for unrealistic "out years" of a contract. In most cases, the 1-in-a-thousand superstardom you're willing to say you expect of 1-in-10 players, never happens (don't think this was the case for Dillon, he was a more known quantity). So 990 of them end up redoing the deal to reflect reality, and have no recourse; nobody else is going to sign a "good" player to a "great's" contract.
This is the long way around to saying - Corey, dude, thanks for not dragging it out. Yeah, if all the negotiating would end up getting some paltry additional figure (say, my annual salary,) you did the right thing and we love you for it.
But contracts are a pretty damn fluid medium, for such legalistic documents. I don't think Dillon's altruism (or his agent's) is the operative force here. I think it goes back eventually to supply and demand.
Okay, cap/contract mavens, have at it. Whenever I talk caps/contracts I figure I get about 1/3 of it right. I await the corrections.
But yeah, I can answer the big point - you don't want to structure the deal one way or the other "In the first place," with a plan in place for 5 years, and no chance to modify for various exigencies and preferences (would we rather front-load? Are we in a position where we HAVE to defer a cap hit? Were the last X years of the deal realistic, or realistic IF HE'S THE WORLD'S GREATEST? Etc.)
Of course, legally, that's what the contracts are, "set in stone" - that's why you have to redo them if the crystal ball gets foggy. The reason they can redo a document that's "set in stone" is that money can be shifted that still gets paid, just under different titles or at different increments, and that other money was never really expected, and so the player does not kick and scream because nobody else will pay it either. (Hence the guaranteed money versus salary and incentives division.) Only this year's bonus(es) are real.
PFnV
