The Washington Redskins didn’t pull any punches when going after Landon Collins in free agency.
After losing D.J. Swearinger and others for various reasons, the Redskins targeted the 25-year-old playmaker and lured him to town on a $45 million deal.
That’s a massive outlier, as ESPN’s Bill Barnwell pointed out:
Those numbers seemed shocking for a safety, and there was some assumption that the contract specifics would yield a much less impressive deal, but that’s not really the case. Collins is only guaranteed $26 million, but the structure of this deal makes it extremely likely that he will take home that full $45 million figure over three years. (The only way Washington could get away with paying Collins $26 million would be if they cut him after one year, at which point Daniel Snyder & Co. would owe $22 million in dead money.)
To put it another way, Eric Berry is the last to hold the three-year crown — and that only checked in at $33 million.
Collins was great, undoubtedly, but it’s a huge escalation of the market. The Redskins probably paid an NFC East tax and wanted to make sure Collins couldn’t create a bidding war, hence the massive offer.
If it works out the Redskins won’t complain — and neither will future safeties hitting the open market.
