News broke yesterday (via Jason La Canfora) that the Arizona Cardinals have finally inked defensive end Calais Campbell to a new 5-year, $55 million contract. This is certainly the biggest news of the offseason for the Cardinals and their fans.
Now that some of the details have leaked, there are a couple of interesting things to note about Campbell's new deal. Also, it seems that the Cardinals may have saved themselves quite a bit of money re-signing Calais. Find out why after the jump.
As Jason La Canfora noted in his tweet, Campbell is due to make $36 million of the total over the first three years. It seems that he may have taken a bit less overall money, but was able to get the contract loaded towards the front end. Also, information on how much money is guaranteed has not been released yet, but one could assume that it will probably be a bit shy of $40 million.
It is interesting how much money Campbell ended up getting. After Mario Williams signed his 6-year, $100 million mega deal, many would have assumed Campbell's asking price may have increased as well. Instead, he ended up signing a deal quite similar to teammate Darnell Dockett's. If you recall, Dockett signed a 4-year, $40 million contract back in 2010, with $30 million of it guaranteed.
As Alex noted in his post, the Cardinals have obviously turned a new leaf in this franchise by keeping Campbell and signing him to a long term deal. Many thought that this may turn into a situation similar to the Karlos Dansby one, but the Cards value the core of their team too much, Campbell included.
So congratulations to Calais Campbell! Let's see how many sacks he can rack up this season with his brand new contract squared away.
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