Colts and LB Darius Leonard agree to 5 year contract extension

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by AlwaysSunnyinIndy

That was fast....Sportrac already has a lot of the contract details up on their website.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/indianap...leonard-25135/

The deal was a 5 year extension so with the last year of his rookie deal, Leonard is under contract for 6 years.

However, it looks like the contract is structured similar to Braden Smith's contract where the Colts could exit the deal early with a minimal dead cap hit.

For instance, you could view this contract as a 2 year, $43.1MM extension with the Colts exiting after the 2023 season. The only dead cap hit would be the prorated portion of the signing bonus ($8MM).

Exactly, it’s basically a 2-year extension for a guaranteed $42.3 million (my calculations are slightly different than yours, as I think he was already scheduled to make $4.2M for the colts this year), locking him to the Colts for his age 26, 27 and 28 seasons.

After that, the Colts have no further obligations to him (apart from a $6.4M injury guarantee for 2024), and will have the option (but not the obligation) of keeping him around at the following cost each of the remaining years:

Age 29 (2024) - $16.1M
Age 30 (2025) - $19.6M
Age 31 (2026) - $19.7M

Contrast this with the recent “5 year, $95M” contract signed by Fred Warner of the 49ers, and you’ll see that Leonard’s contract is indeed probably more expensive, but is not altogether clear due to the different structures used by the teams.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/san-fran...-warner-25169/

Warner’s is a bit more complicated than Leonard’s but basically boils down to a 2-year, $41.1M extension (though $12M of this won’t become fully guaranteed until April of 2023, but I’d still consider it essentially guaranteed because the team would have to take a $20M+ cap hit if they cut him before that).

The 49ers did more financial engineering than the Colts did to push more of the cap impact down the road. In addition to the $12.3M signing bonus (which is prorated across the contract term), they also employed a $12.6M option bonus (which is also prorated for cap purposes). This has the impact of making Warner’s contract have a smaller cap impact in the early years (you’ll see its less than Leonard’s over the first few years), but is larger later (and a bigger impact if cut). After 2023, the 49ers can keep Warner around for the following real world amounts:

Age 28 (2024) - $15.9M
Age 29 (2025) - $18.3M
Age 30 (2026) - $18.3M

Warner’s agent also negotiated a $3.6M payment if the 49ers seek to void the 2025 and 2026 years, which will help discourage the 49ers from cutting Warner.

On balance, I'd say that Leonard's contract is more lucrative in the near term, but that Warner has a better chance of seeing the end of his contract.