The 12-hour trek from Isle of Palms, South Carolina back to PFT headquarters has ended. I’m celebrating by rolling up the sleeves and getting back to work.
Among the day’s developments was the announcement by the Dolphins of a deal with defensive end Dion Jordan, the third overall pick in the draft. Via multiple reports (and as PFT has confirmed), the contract is fully guaranteed, but it contains offset language.
So Jordan won’t be holding out. It won’t matter much in the short term. Per a league source, Jordan is still one or two weeks away from contact drills, following offseason shoulder surgery.
The lingering injury would have made it easy for Jordan to stay away for part of training camp, since he wouldn’t have been missing any contact drills. But Jordan, we’re told, realized that after successfully inserting offset language into quarterback Ryan Tannehill’s rookie deal (after a holdout), the Dolphins couldn’t have blinked on offsets in Jordan’s contract.
Making the decision easier was the payment of roughly $13.4 million in bonus money within the next three months, along with a shifting of cash from base salaries in future years to training-camp roster bonuses. The base salaries will be the league minimum for each of the four years of the deal. As a result, if the Dolphins decide to cut Jordan based on, say, Jordan’s performance during training camp in 2016, the offset will apply only to the fourth-year minimum salary.
Thus, it’s a win for the Dolphins, but with limitations. And if the Dolphins ultimately benefit from the offset clause via a decision to cut Jordan and prevent him from double dipping, the folks exchanging high fives likely won’t be G.M. Jeff Ireland and senior V.P. of football operations Dawn Aponte.
If Jordan ends up being a bust, they’ll both likely be gone.