In the midst of the flurry of contract extensions handed out by the Houston Texans on Thursday, the last was the biggest and most anticipated contract extension completed. DeAndre Hopkins (WR) and Houston Texans completed a 5 year extension worth approximately $81,000,000 in new money. Let’s break this down as well as compare it to the other top wide receiver contracts.

Contract Summary

Paper Value: 6 year deal worth $88,915,000.

Total APY: $14.82 million

Guaranteed at Signing: $36.5 million

2017 base salary ($8.0m), 2017 roster bonus ($8.5m), 2018 base salary ($12.5m), signing bonus ($7.5m)

Total Vesting Guarantees: $49 million

Guaranteed money at signing ($36.5m) + 2019 base salary ($12.5m) which becomes fully guaranteed on March 18, 2018.

3 Year Cash Flow: $49 million

4 Year Cash Flow: $61.5 million

New Money: $81.0 million

New Money APY: $16.2 million

Salary Cap Percentage Breakdown (estimates on 2018-2020)

Year Cap Charge Cap Percentage 2017 $18.0 10.9% 2018 $14.0 7.8% 2019 $14.0 7.3% 2020 $14.0 6.8%

The contract is essentially a three year contract with team options starting in 2020 when the guaranteed money runs out. By design in 2020 is when the dead money drops significantly. The Texans continue their use of the “hybrid” contract model; utilizing a small signing bonus with a year 1 (or year 2) roster bonus with guaranteed salary to limit the dead money on the back end of the contract. This is a very strong offer for Hopkins given he is not an unrestricted free agent. There has been some discussion if Hopkins should be paid like a Top 5 wide receiver based on his 2016 production. Hopkins will need to get back to his 2015 form to prove this contract was worth it. The Texans were able to take advantage of their salary cap position in 2017 and 2018 to front load this contract to drive down the salary cap percentage in the later years.

After the season is complete we can use some statistical analysis to compare Hopkins versus the other highly paid wide receivers using snap per dollar, reception per dollar, and yards per route run, and maybe a few other variables.

Comparison Against The Position

To compare Hopkins’ new contract information was compiled from OverTheCap and the top 5 wide receiver contracts were used for comparison. This includes Antonio Brown, Demaryius Thomas, Dez Bryant, A.J. Green, and Julio Jones. One thing to consider in this exercise is Jones, Bryant, Thomas, and Green all signed their contracts in 2015, only Brown and Hopkins signed in 2017. Hopkins is the youngest player of the group when signed to a contract extension at 25 years old; compared to rest being 26 years or older.

New Money Comparison

New money is the money in the contract which was not already scheduled to be earned. Hopkins was scheduled to earn $7.95 million in 2017; subtract that amount from the total contract value to arrive at the New Money total. This is one of many metrics used in contract comparison. Hopkins’ APY is now 2nd at the position only behind Antonio Brown.

Player Name Length New Money Total New Money APY DeAndre Hopkins 5 $81.0 $16.2 Antonio Brown 4 $68.0 $17.0 Julio Jones 5 $71.25 $14.25 Dez Bryant 5 $70.0 $14.0 Demaryius Thomas 5 $70.0 $14.0 A.J. Green 4 $60.0 $15.0

Guaranteed Money

Guaranteed money at signing and total guaranteed money will be the two metrics reviewed him. The guaranteed money reported in the media generally is total guaranteed money which can include vesting guarantees and/or injury guarantees. You will note that Antonio Brown and A.J. Green’s guarantees are smaller, but that is a function of how Pittsburgh & Cincinnati structure their contracts. These contracts provide virtual guarantees which are not captured here.

Player Name Guaranteed At Signing Guaranteed At Signing % Total Guaranteed Total Guaranteed % DeAndre Hopkins $36.5 45.1% $49.0 60.5% Antonio Brown $19.0 27.9% $19.0 27.9% Julio Jones $35.5 49.8% $47.0 66.0% Dez Bryant $32.0 45.7% $45.0 64.3% Demaryius Thomas $35.0 50.% $43.5 62.1% A.J. Green $26.75 44.6% $26.75 44.6%

Cash Flow (Running Total)

The top tier wide receiver contracts are viewed as 3 year contracts with “we’ll see” team options after that. This also applies to DeAndre Hopkins contract extension. In the table below you can see how the cash flow compares against the players. 3 year cash flow is a metric used by many player agents. Year 0 is used since these contracts are extensions. However since Thomas and Bryant were on a franchise tag at the time of signing, Year 0 will be $0 for their respective table. This cash flow is based on new money alone, does not include previous scheduled earned cash.

Player Name 2017 (Year 0) 2018 (Year 1) 2019 (Year 2) 2020 (Year 3) 2021 (Year 4) 2022 (Year 5) DeAndre Hopkins $16,085,000 $28,585,000 $41,085,000 $53,585,000 $67,085,000 $81,000,000 Antonio Brown $15,200,000 $29,075,000 $44,200,000 $55,500,000 $68,000,000 – Julio Jones $11,824,000 $25,324,000 $36,824,000 $47,324,000 $59,824,000 $71,250,000 Dez Bryant $0 $23,000,000 $32,000,000 $45,000,000 $57,500,000 $70,000,000 Demaryius Thomas $0 $22,000,000 $35,000,000 $47,500,000 $56,000,000 $70,000,000 A.J. Green $16,574,000 $26,574,000 $37,074,000 $47,824,000 $60,000,000 –

After the season is over we can return to compare these 6 players on their statistics versus their salary cap charge for the 2017 season.

Troy