Arizona Cardinals outside linebacker signed a two-year contract in 2021 to come back to the team. It was a bargain of a deal. Before the season began this year, he agreed to a contract extension worth up to a reported $6.5 million.
Over the Cap has had his contract details for a bit but it wasn’t written about here and I have not seen it elsewhere, so let’s go through the numbers for his new deal.
Old contract numbers for 2022
Entering the final year of his deal, he was due $2 million in salary, none of which was guaranteed, and up to $250,000 in per-game roster bonuses. He could earn up to $2 million in incentives for reaching certain sack numbers.
His original cap hit was scheduled to be $3 million but, because he earned $1 million in sack incentives in 2021, that number was added to this year’s cap.
His cap hit was going to be $4 million.
Markus Golden contract extension details, salary
The extension is worth a total of $6.91 million. While called a one-year extension, it is essentially a two-year deal worth nearly $7 million.
He received a signing bonus of $2.16 million. His salary, previously an unguaranteed $2 million, now is a fully guaranteed $1.5 million.
Instead of per-game roster bonuses worth up to $250,000, that total is now up to $170,000 or $10,000 per game.
Instead of the $2.25 million he was due to make in total cash in 2022, now he will get more than $3.8 million.
In 2023, his salary increases to $2.91 million and he again has per-game roster bonuses up to $170,000.
Salary cap numbers
He was going to have a $4 million cap hit this year.
With his $1.5 million salary, the $750,000 in previous signing bonus proration, $1.08 million in new signing bonus proration, his per-game roster bonuses and his $1 million performance incentives earned from last year, his cap hit increases slightly to $4.33 million.
That cap hit is $4.16 million in 2023.
It went from being a bargain to being a bargain again.
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