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The obvious narrative when the general (largely irrelevant) numbers emerged on the Fletcher Cox deal was that the real numbers, when obtained, would likely help the cause of Broncos linebacker Von Miller. The real numbers, first obtained by PFT (yes, Stephen A., we can “break a damn story”), definitely become a benefit to Miller.

That hasn’t stopped some Twitter contrarians and curmudgeons from pushing back, pointing out that Cox’s contract does no more for Miller than does the deals signed in 2015 by Ndamukong Suh in Miami and earlier this year by Olivier Vernon in New York. But there’s a huge difference between the Cox contract and the deals signed by Suh and Vernon.

Suh and Vernon received their deals on the open market, making it easy for the Broncos to point out that Miller isn’t hitting the open market, and that he’s constrained by the CBA rules relating to the franchise tag. That argument isn’t available as to Cox, who was on the franchise-tag track before signing his new deal. Making Cox’s deal even more helpful for Miller is the fact that Cox got his mammoth contract a year before his rookie deal expired. Miller’s rookie deal has expired.

Sure, the Broncos very well could argue that the Eagles were nuts to pay Cox that much money. At some point, however, the notion that a given team overpaid a given player yields to the reality that enough teams have paid enough players to create a real market.

Here’s how Cox’s deal helps Miller the most. Currently, the Broncos are willing to fully guarantee $39.5 million to Miller at signing, covering two years of the contract. The next chunk, guaranteed for injury only (i.e., not really guaranteed), vests in March of 2018, at which point Miller would have nearly $60 million in the bank, figuratively.

Cox’s deal contains a trigger that makes the 2018 compensation fully guaranteed in March of 2017, not 2018. It gives Cox more than $55 million fully guaranteed within nine months. By March 2018, Cox has more than $63 million fully guaranteed.

So Cox, who was still a year away from forcing the Eagles to use the franchise tag, has engineered a structure that definitely provides Miller with a persuasive argument that the trigger for the balance of his guaranteed money should be moved from 2018 to 2017. The deal also gives Miller ammunition for arguing for even more guaranteed money; currently, the Broncos are closer to $60 million and Miller is closer to $70 million. With Cox at $63 million, the pendulum necessarily has swung to the high side of $65 million.