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A number of Jets signings were reported on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we started to get a picture of what some of the contracts look like, albeit an incomplete picture.
Trumaine Johnson
Trumaine Johnson's pending deal with the #Jets, per source: Five years, $72.5M ($14.5M APY). Includes $34M fully guaranteed. Close to the Revis deal in 2015 (5 years, $70M, with $39M fully guaranteed,
— Rich Cimini (@RichCimini) March 14, 2018
Simply put, the Jets are giving Johnson superstar money. This is a top two contract at the position. Comparable deals that come to mind went to Darrelle Revis and Xavier Rhodes. I haven’t seen the full breakdown yet, but given the information we have the Jets aren’t going to have a ton of flexibility on this one. It likely would keep Johnson expensively on the team for at least two years and at best provide the Jets with an expensive out in the third year if it proved to be a Wilkerson/Revis catastrophe.
Johnson is good, but he doesn’t have a superstar track record. This just looks like a combination of a desperate team, a big need, and the best player in a free agent class without top end talent.
I don’t think it’s realistic to expect Johnson to ever live up to this deal. But there are certain overpays that you can live with if things break the right way. If Johnson finds the form he had at earlier points in his career, this might not be an egregious overpay. Hopefully for the Jets he can because this has the potential to look ugly in the future.
Isaiah Crowell
Isaiah Crowell's #Jets contract, per source: three years, $12M max value, $3M signing bonus, $6M guaranteed, yearly salaries of $1M (guaranteed), $4M ($2M fully guaranteed now), $4M. Yearly cap hits: $2M, $5M, $5M.
— Darryl Slater (@DarrylSlater) March 14, 2018
You view on this one probably comes down to what you think of Crowell’s skillset and how well his Cleveland production will translate to a new system and blockers. On paper, this looks like a reasonable deal for a starting back.
Teddy Bridgewater
I'm told Teddy Bridgewater's deal with the Jets will be at a max value of $15M with incentives he can hit, per source.
— Josina Anderson (@JosinaAnderson) March 14, 2018
The Bridgewater contract was initially reported at $5 million. To be honest, something about that didn’t seem right to me. We await additional clarification, but one might be left to guess the base salary is $5 million with incentives that could go up to $15 million.
That seems fair. If Bridgewater hits all of his incentives he will be well worth it, and the Jets will have a bargain.
The structure of this deal seems unusual, but this is an unusual situation. With the injury Bridgewater suffered, it’s really tough to get a handle on what we can expect. The Jets protect themselves with incentives and provide Bridgewater with fair compensation if he looks like a franchise guy.
In a way I’m actually kind of happy to see the additional money on the deal. I was a little nervous to think that Bridgewater had such little demand that $5 million was all it took to land him.