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Larry FItzgerald and the Arizona Cardinals caused quite the buzz on Tuesday when it was announced by the receiver himself.
At first, the numbers were not known, but reporter Kent Somers tweeted that, per two NFL sources, it was nothing more than a simple conversion from salary to bonus that lowered his cap number by about $10 million.
Reports have since come out that show that Fitz will still get all of the $12.75 million he was set to get in salary. $11.75 million was turned into a bonus, the cap hit of which will be prorated for the five years remaining on his contract. His new cap hit will be $8.6 million.
He will get paid $12.75 million, but he gets almost all of it now.
Now, as Spotrac has it, this is how his cap hit breaks down for 2014:
- $1 million salary for the season
- $2 million prorated hit from his original $10 million signing bonus
- $3 million prorated hit from his $15 million option bonus from 2012
- $250,000 workout bonus during the offseason
- $2.35 million prorates hit for his $11.75 million restructure bonus he just agreed to.
- The total is $8.6 million
The tricky part is moving forward. His cap number goes up substantively in 2015. It will be $23.6 million in 2015, with more than $14.4 million in dead money if he is cut. The final three years beyond that will have a cap hit over over $17 million each year.
The Cardinals did what they needed to for now. They just will have to address this again in a year from now.
