The Colts QB in 2021 is?...

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by Puck

Pretty sure Dam is right about the guaranteed not sure about the yr to yr part though

I think you guys might be confusing the rules relating to signing bonuses and contract guarantees. Although a signing bonus is paid at the time of a contract being signed, for salary cap purposes the bonus amount is divided equally over the entire term of the contract. However, if the player is traded or released before the end of the contract, the portions of the signing bonus allocated to future years are immediately telescoped into the present cap year.

Guarantees work a little differently. Contract guarantees are allocated to the year in which they are scheduled to be paid. If a player is traded, those unpaid guarantees travel with the player to the new team. If that player is cut or released instead, the team still must honor the future guarantees and those contract guarantee amounts are telescoped into the current cap year.

Last, but not least, there are non-guaranteed parts of the contract. As I’m sure everyone knows, those are extinguished without consequence if a player is cut, but until that time remain on the team’s books and are counted against their projected salary cap. If the player is traded, the new team steps into the shoes of the prior team and has the same right to honor these terms, or to cut/release the player with no obligation.

The different treatment of bonuses, contract guarantees, and non-guaranteed contract amounts (and all various permutations of each) are the building blocks for all of the financial engineering the players and teams do.