Tennessee Titans contract breakdown for NFL’s highest paid safety Kevin Byard
By Will Lomas
Details on the historic Kevin Byard contract for the Tennessee Titans.
When the Tennessee Titans made Kevin Byard the highest paid safety in the NFL, people finally seemed ready to talk about the “Mayor of Murfreesboro.”
However, people were split in their opinions. Some people thought you shouldn’t pay a safety that much, other people thought he wasn’t getting paid enough, but most Titans fans agreed that keeping a young defensive star was going to be worth it no matter the cost.
With the numbers already out there, we had a pretty good idea of what the Kevin Byard deal would be, but Spotrac had a full breakdown of it last night:
Kevin Byard’s 5 yr, $70.5M extension w/ the #Titans contains just $19.625M fully guaranteed at signing thru 2020 & per-game-active bonuses throughout.
— Spotrac (@spotrac) August 1, 2019
He’s covered for injury thru 2021, but this is a 2-year deal until it’s not.
Breakdown: https://t.co/GiOg2Z66qQ pic.twitter.com/d8zkIctPWP
I’m no cap expert, but as far as I can see that looks like a deal loaded with some good guaranteed money up top, but after 2020 it looks like the Titans become extremely flexible.
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Now, understand that I am not suggesting that the Titans are even considering the possibility of cutting Kevin Byard. It is hard to think of a world where a team is better off without the best safety in the NFL after all.
What I am saying, is that this gives the Titans a great deal of flexibility if they want to bring in free agents down the road. Even in a cap crunch, the Titans could turn some of that non GTD money into GTD money and reduce his total cap hit by millions without really costing him any money.
Or, they could restructure at any point too and get Byard on board because he wouldn’t be kicking any real GTD money down the road.
This isn’t the flashy part of the NFL, but it is smart deal like this that prevent nightmares in the future and it allows you to go out and get star talent like Rodger Saffold, Logan Ryan, Kenny Vaccaro, and others if you want it.
This deal worked for everyone but most importantly, when you look at it as a tool to be manipulated (to the benefit of the player and the team) down the road to find cap space, you have to be impressed by the front office of the Tennessee Titans.