We welcome our readers and followers to submit mailbag questions to us via our Twitter feed @TheCowboysWire or on Facebook .

Our question this week comes on the heels of the leaked information Cowboys DE Randy Gregory has failed another drug test and is facing a year-long ban on top of the four and 10-game bans he’s serving now. That would keep him out until Week 16 next season.

Gregory does not count against the 53-man roster while he is suspended.

Aside from what the prolonged absence will do to his skillset (if he were able to get it together enough to play again), it also hurts his pockets.

@KDDrummondNFL not that it matters. Do you know how his contract works? What he has made? Dead money? Rookie deals guaranteed? — Michael Feteira (@mike_fetz) November 12, 2016

These are great questions, let’s tackle them one by one.

How does his contract work?

As a second-round pick in 2015, Gregory is signed to a standard four-year deal. The rookie wage scale in the 2011 CBA took the negotiating out of contracts. Gregory got a standard signing bonus for the 60th pick that is an increase over a similar number from the year prior, based on the salary cap increase, which is directly tied to league revenue.

The amount for Gregory was $1,304,500. That is paid upfront, at the time of the signing, but it is spread out equally over the course of the deal for salary cap accounting purposes.

Gregory also get’s a base salary each of the four years which increases each year of the deal. At the conclusion of the final year of the deal, Gregory would be a free agent unless he signed an extension with Dallas already. Players can only sign extensions after their third year.

Not only is Randy Gregory not extension eligible, he’s not accruing a season towards free agency and he has to give back some of his signing bonus.

Signing Bonus Proration

Teams have a choice whether or not to still pay a player for personal conduct suspensions, but they are mandated to collect the signing bonus back for games lost to PED or substance-abuse.

We’ll assume Gregory does face an additional one-year ban. That means Gregory has to pay back in cash (which returns to Cowboys’ cap total) $258,625 for missing all of this season, and 15/17th of next year’s signing bonus. That totals to $486,824 he has to pay back. Dallas will get a end-of-year credit at the conclusion of each suspension on their cap, but the full amount will be there to start the 2017 league year.

Accrued Season

A player accrues a season of service when he is on full-pay status for at least six games. If a player doesn’t reach that threshold, they don’t accrue a season towards free agency. Before any additional suspension is officially announced (this pending one-year ban), Gregory has already lost his chance to be an unrestricted free agent after the 2018 season. He will now be an RFA, meaning the Cowboys could tender him an offer and receive draft pick compensation from any team that wanted to sign him away.

That’s if he didn’t have another suspension coming. Since it appears he will . . .

Contract Toll

If a player ends up suspended for an entire year, which appears likely then his contract year tolls. That means what was on the books for 2016, will now apply to 2017. 2017 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019. Since an additional suspension means Gregory won’t play six games or more and won’t accrue a season, he would then enter the 2020 season as a RFA.

The Cowboys will essentially have his rights for 2019 and 2020 and will not have paid him any more than two game checks over until the start of the 2018 season.

What has he made?

Gregory has earned his entire base salary from his rookie deal, $435,000, plus the initial signing bonus payment of $1.3 million. As detailed above, though, the club is required to get back the portion of the signing bonus for the time he has been suspended.

He hasn’t received a dime of the Cowboys money since the end of last season though. Gregory had no workout or roster bonuses in his contract which would have earned him an offseason check. He would’ve made $1,800 per week in training camp, but checked himself into rehab right before it started.

As he is suspended he is not receiving his weekly base salary checks either, and the amounts have been credited to the Cowboys salary cap already for this year. Once the 2017 regular season begins, if he’s still on the team, the Cowboys will then get cap credit for the amount of games he’ll miss next year.

Dead Money?

At this point, it is still very much up in the air whether or not Dallas would release Gregory. The other option would be to continue to try and give him help which the organization is well known to do. If so, there’s no dead money to talk about. They carry his rights, eat a cap hit to begin the season, then get a credit Week 1.

If the Cowboys release him, though, they’d carry the dead money from whatever signing bonus amount they didn’t have the right to recoup from him. That’s just the $258,625 x 2 remaining years for just over a half a million dollars.

Rookie Deals Guaranteed?

Only the signing bonus and a portion of Gregory’s first-year base salary were guaranteed. The latter has obviously already passed with the conclusion of his rookie year. No future base salaries contain any guaranteed money.