Tom Brady and the Patriots agreed to a 2-year extension last week, and the details of that contract have emerged, which are pretty interesting.
The signing bonus of the contract is big. It’s a $28 million bonus, with low base salaries for the next two seasons, at $1 million for both 2016 and 2017. The drop in the base salaries acts as protection for Brady in the case that he’s hit with a four-game suspension over Deflategate.
#Patriots QB Tom Brady's next extension is finally filed. It's 2 years, $41M with $28M to sign. Base salaries in 2015 & 2016 now $1M.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 10, 2016
Now, if Brady is in fact suspended, he will lose $235,941.17, as opposed to $2.11 million in 2016, or $2.35 million in 2017, according to ProFootballTalk.
The team didn’t save nearly as much in cap space as they did on his last deal. This time around, the team will just save $1 million and $2 million in cap space for 2016 and 2017, respectively.
The cap hit for Brady would be $22 million in 2018, at which point he will be 40 years old, but as these contracts usually work out, the deal will be reworked before it even gets to that point. Backup Jimmy Garoppolo’s contract is set to expire after the 2017 season, which would give the Patriots a similar situation that the Broncos were in just a few days ago.
But if Brady continues to stay healthy and play at a high level, who knows what could happen in New England.
