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Jets sign Leveon Bell 4 years 52mil

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Le'Veon Bell is boring everyone, by doing exactly what everyone expected. He dropped an album on Spotify at midnight, it contained no clues (and it wasn't very good) and then he signed with the Jets, per CBS Sports NFL insider Jason La Canfora.

Bell himself has since confirmed the deal as well.

The news was first reported by Adam Schefter of ESPN, who also reported the details of the contract: four years, $52.5 million with $35 million guaranteed and the possibility to go up as high as $61 million with incentives.

It's hard not to see this deal and immediately think that Bell made a mistake by not signing one of several deals the Steelers put in front of him back before he was ever thinking about skipping an entire season. 

Bell sat out all of 2018 after the Steelers franchise tagged him for a second time, thinking he would hit free agency and make a pile of money, including making up for the $14 million he lost out on by not playing on the tag last year. Instead, as La Canfora noted, his market was soft as all get out. 

Ultimately it was one team -- the Jets -- with the Ravens and Raiders never really materializing as actual suitors. He will now make less per year ($13.125 million) than he was slated to make under the franchise tag last year and he is well below the offers that the Steelers put in front of him previously.

Back in September, La Canfora reported that Bell walked away from $48 million in the first three years of an offer from the Steelers. He isn't getting that from the Jets -- just look at the guaranteed number involved here.

From a pure football perspective, it's a nice fit, although it remains to be seen how Bell looks outside the safety bubble of the Steelers that featured Ben Roethlisberger, a fantastic offensive line and multiple other skill position guys (Antonio Brown, etc) for defenses to key in on. 

For the Jets, this is a pretty major win. They added a bona fide offensive playmaker to pair with their young star quarterback Sam Darnold, and Bell's ability to be a short-yardage passing weapon shouldn't be underrated when it comes to how he'll fit in Adam Gase's offense. Pair him with Jamison Crowder and the Jets had a nice, albeit expensive, turn in free agency when it comes to offensive acquisitions. 

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Guess things don't work out if you're not named Antonio Brown.

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He got triple the guaranteed money the Steelers offered. That seems like it worked out. 

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Is that all he was fighting for? Would he have taken a smaller deal from the Steelers but with more guarantees?

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Doesn't make tons of sense for the overall movement the Jets are undergoing... but I see how they are desperately trying to give Darnold all the help he can get. I like the identity of running and defense that it provides. Hopefully Bell doesn't turn into Albert Haynesworth. Kind of risky from that standpoint. 

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The Steelers only offered 10 million guaranteed. Yeah he would've made more money if he played out the tag and had a great, injury-free year, but he could've obliterated his knee week 1 and made 15 million less than he gets from this deal if the exact same thing happens  

https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2018/7/18/17585956/leveon-bell-contract-steelers-offer-guaranteed-money-free-agency

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6 hours ago, blotsfan said:

He got triple the guaranteed money the Steelers offered. That seems like it worked out. 

You're talking out of your ass.

The Steelers offered him $70/5yr with $33M guaranteed in the first two years and $45M guaranteed total. He took $10M less guaranteed money and 875K less per year while also losing the $14.5M from last year's tag. He and his retarded "NFL players are slaves" agent fucked this situation up massively.

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7 hours ago, Zack_of_Steel said:

You're talking out of your ass.

The Steelers offered him $70/5yr with $33M guaranteed in the first two years and $45M guaranteed total. He took $10M less guaranteed money and 875K less per year while also losing the $14.5M from last year's tag. He and his retarded "NFL players are slaves" agent fucked this situation up massively.

From the article in the link I posted.

 

 

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Rolling guaranteed = still guaranteed.

We don't know the full details of his new contract. And he still missed all of last year's $14.5M while getting fat.

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Rolling guaranteed = guaranteed if you're on the roster on a certain date = not actually guaranteed.

 

If a team can cut a player to avoid paying a guarantee, that isnt guaranteed. 

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12 hours ago, blotsfan said:

Rolling guaranteed = guaranteed if you're on the roster on a certain date = not actually guaranteed.

 

If a team can cut a player to avoid paying a guarantee, that isnt guaranteed. 

Which means literally nothing when it comes to the Steelers and how they have operated since the 70's. The Steelers honor their star players' contracts even when it does not benefit the team to finish out their last couple years. He'd have seen all $45M of the guaranteed money plus his base salary.

And like I said before, the contract details had not been released until today.

The SB Nation article you posted is incorrect and claims the only money he had fully guaranteed was $10M for year 1 when in reality it was $20.5M. They and Rapoport (a stupid fucking hack--why are we even entertaining his reporting as fact?) both incorrectly assume that the only guaranteed part of a contract is the signing bonus when in reality any part of the contract can be deemed "guaranteed," which is the case with his current contract as well as the one the Steelers offered. That dumbass SB article spent a bunch of time whining about "establishing a narrative" while in the same breath quoting Rapoport and pointing only at the $10M signing bonus to slant the narrative toward Bell being the winner.
 

It would behoove you to read this article comparing the fine details of the contracts. They estimate that he lost $19M in real cash by sitting out '18.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/leveon-bell-contract-details-revealed-heres-how-much-jets-new-star-may-have-lost-by-sitting-out-2018/

LeVeon is only getting $25M fully guaranteed money total. This year he will get $14.5M guaranteed while the Steelers' deal offered $20.5M guaranteed in year 1. Year 2 with the Jets bumps up to $26M total while the Steelers deal rose to $33M. Year 3 moves to $45M from the Steelers whereas the Jets gave themselves an out. In 2021 he's only going to get a $3M training camp bonus as well as $500k from per game bonuses ($31.250*16).

 

This situation is laughably bad for LeVeon considering all the posturing and spouting off he did. I guess if we're being positive he got a year's vacation at the cost of ~$19M.

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2 hours ago, Zack_of_Steel said:

Which means literally nothing when it comes to the Steelers and how they have operated since the 70's. The Steelers honor their star players' contracts even when it does not benefit the team to finish out their last couple years. He'd have seen all $45M of the guaranteed money plus his base salary.

That seems untrue.

And of course if Le'Veon signed the deal and was fine he wouldn't have been cut after one year. But what if he had a career-ending injury? Can't imagine the Steelers pay 10 million out then. If "rolling guarantees" are truly guaranteed, then the Steelers would've paid them as a signing bonus or a true guarentee if that's what it took to get him.

And the same situation is true with playing last year. If you could guarantee him that he would have a great year, stay healthy, and be in-demand after playing on the franchise tag, I'm sure he would've played without a doubt. He was more concerned about being protected if the worst-case scenario happened. You can say that you don't agree with him playing it safe, but at the end of the day if he destroys his leg on the first play of his first game now, he gets 25 million. If that happened under the franchise tag, he would've gotten 14.5 million. If that happened after signing the Steeler's deal he gets 10 million. He wanted to make sure that he got as much money locked away as possible for the worst case scenario. Hard to say he made the wrong decision from that perspective.

And before you mention Ryan Shazier as an example of the Steelers "taking care of their own" or whatever, keeping him around is half a million per year, not even close to the cost of paying to keep an unable to play Le'Veon. And honesty, seeing Shazier get hurt and lose out on a massive contract the way he did probably had a role in Bell's decision. 

Edited by blotsfan

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