The numbers are now in on the new five-year, $70 million contract signed Wednesday by Broncos receiver Demaryius Thomas, just as the deadline for inking franchise-tagged players to long-term deals was closing.
Some of the details have trickled out previously. Here’s the entire deal:
1. $11 million signing bonus (with $3.5 million deferred to March 2016);
2. $6.5 million roster bonus due on July 20, guaranteed for skill and injury, with no offset (with $3.5 million deferred to March 2016);
3. $4.5 million fully guaranteed base salary for 2015, with no offset language;
4. $13 million fully guaranteed base salary for 2016, with no offset language;
5. $8.5 million base salary for 2017, guaranteed for injury only at signing, and becoming fully guaranteed if on the roster the fifth day after Super Bowl LI, with no offset language;
6. $4 million option bonus for 2018, to be exercised between five days after Super Bowl LII and one day before the start of the 2018 league year;
7. $8.5 million non-guaranteed base salary for 2018.
8. $14 million non-guaranteed base salary for 2019.
The guarantees make the contract, as a practical matter, fully guaranteed for the first two years, at $35 million total. The Broncos can avoid the balance of the contract by cutting Thomas promptly after the Super Bowl to end the 2016 season, avoiding another $8.5 million in fully-guaranteed pay.
The next year, the deal has an early $4 million trigger that forces the Broncos to keep Thomas at another $12.5 million for 2018 or to cut him loose. In the last year of the deal, the Broncos have essentially until the start of the regular season to decide whether to keep him at $14 million.
It makes it a two-year, $35 million deal, a three-year, $43.5 million deal, a four-year, $56 million deal, or a five-year $70 million deal.
The cap numbers are $13.2 million for 2015, $15.2 million for 2016, $12.033 million for 2017, $12.033 million for 2018, and $17.53 million for 2019.
Given that the Broncos could have had Thomas at a cash and cap number of $12.8 million for 2015 and $15.36 million for 2016 under the tag, it would have been a very difficult deal for Thomas to not accept.