Soon-to-be Raiders receiver Antonio Brown was due to earn zero dollar and zero cents of guaranteed money over the next three years. Instead, he’ll get $30 million, fully guaranteed.
Per a source with knowledge of the terms of the looming contract restructuring, the Raiders will guarantee $30 million of Brown’s future payout. Also, the total amount he was due to earn through 2021 will increase from $38.925 million to $50.125 million.
There are multiple ways to assess the new deal. Brown will make $16.7 million per year in hard dollars over the next three seasons. But when the $11.2 million is added to the $68 million in new money that Brown received two years ago from the Steelers, the new-money average on the entire deal spikes from $17 million to $19.8 million.
Brown also can trigger $4 million in incentives, which would be paid in 2020 and 2021. If earned, he’ll receive an extra $15.2 million over the next three years, and the new-money average of the deal he signed with Pittsburgh in 2017 will be $20.8 million.
Regardless of how the cat is skinned, Brown had made $33.79 million over the last two years and he was due to make $38.925 million, with no guarantees. That number has now gone up by $11.2 million, with $30 million of the $50.125 million he’ll make over the next three seasons now fully guaranteed.
It’s not a bad outcome for a guy who was tied to the Steelers for three more seasons, and who presumably had no leverage to either demand a trade or finagle a new deal.