It’s more than safe to say that Nick Perry and Jimmy Graham didn’t live up to their contracts in 2018. In fact, Nick Perry ended up as my second lowest graded player on defense, and my lowest graded defensive player on a per-play basis. Jimmy Graham wasn’t much better. He was my third lowest graded player on offense, and at the end of the day not only were both players disappointing, but they actually hurt their team more than they actually helped it.

What makes this so much more concerning is that both players have large contracts remaining and both have a large chunk of guaranteed money coming to them regardless of whether Green Bay hangs on to them or not. This has led many people to assume that Green Bay would be better off just hanging on to both players, rather than taking the cap hit and paying them a significant amount of money not to play for the Packers.

You see a decent amount of this from Jimmy Graham. No separation & no effort to get open after the catch. Meanwhile Rodgers shows he still has some of that magic as nobody opens up on this play but he buys time & puts it right on Graham despite his lack of effort—still no catch. pic.twitter.com/HI0plK99JO — Andy Herman (@SconnieSports) October 10, 2018

The truth is that both decisions are much more complex than what they may seem on the surface. On the surface, Nick Perry is on the books for $14,437,500.00 in 2019, while carrying a dead cap hit of $11,100,000.00 if released. So the question would seem to be, would you rather pay Nick Perry $14 million to play for the Packers, or $11 million to cut him?

It’s a similar situation (on the surface) for Jimmy Graham. His 2019 cap hit is set to be $12,666,666.00 for 2019, while his dead cap hit would be $7,333,334.00 if he were to be released. So again, would you rather pay him $12.7 million to play for you or $7.3 million to not play for you?

When looking at the base numbers it seems like an obvious decision; the cap savings simply isn’t large enough to release either player, and the conclusion would seem to be to hang on to Perry & Graham at least one more year and hope that Perry comes back healthy and Graham flourishes in a new offense.

But in order to truly make an educated decision on either player, you really need to look at the entire contract, and what it would truly cost to keep both players.

Also, before we get too far into this, there is less than a zero percent chance that either player restructures their contract or has any trade value. Both contracts would not be favorable to any team trading for them and both players would be incredibly unwise to take any type of pay cut. They both have large enough guarantees that it would be much more beneficial for them to be released, collect the guaranteed money, and sign another contract with a new team rather than restructure with Green Bay. So let’s rule those two options out right now.

So all that being said, let’s take a deep dive into these contracts, and try and figure out if either player is worth keeping around in 2019.

Nick Perry

3rd and 6, backed up deep in their own end zone, Pettine brings only 4 but gets Nick Perry matched up 1x1 with a backup tackle. This is a matchup Perry has to win. This is also his season in a nutshell so far; Perry ends up almost at the back of the end zone. He’s out of ideas. pic.twitter.com/Ol1M1agWXE — Andy Herman (@SconnieSports) September 26, 2018

Per Spotrac, Nick Perry’s contract looks like this:

Perry’s remaining guaranteed money is completely tied up in the signing bonus. If Green Bay were to release him they would save every penny, save for the $11,100,000.00 that he is due via his signing bonus. (Note that we are only talking salary cap here, not how he is actually paid out in true cash).

There’s no easy way to look at this, but the easiest way is to look at what options Green Bay truly has. Perry has three years left on his deal. So at the simplest level, Green Bay can either release Perry, keep him 1 more year, keep him 2 more years, or keep him all three years of the deal. When we break it down that way, we can see much easier how much of the salary cap that Perry would take up to keep him as a Green Bay Packer.

3 Years - $42,837,500.00 - $14,279,166.67.00/year

If Green Bay decided to keep Perry in Green Bay for all three years, the contract would look exactly like it does above and he would make $42,837,500.00 for three years of play, at an average per year of $14,279,166.67.00.

2 years - $32,437,500.00 - $16,218,750.00/year

This is where it starts to get a little bit complex. If you look at the chart above, Perry would have a cap hit of $14,437,500.00 in 2019 and $14,300,000.00 in 2020. So these two totals combined would be $28,737,500.00. But in this scenario, where he plays only two years, it assumes that Green Bay releases him in year three which means they would still owe him his 2021 bonus of $3,700,000.00. So the truth is, for two years of play, Green Bay would pay him $32,437,500.00.

1 year - $21,837,500.00 - $21,837,500.00/year

So as in the 2-year scenario above, you cannot just look at the one year contract value. As I mentioned at the beginning, on the surface it looks like a 1 year - $14,437,500.00 deal for this year, but you have to take into account that Green Bay would still be on the hook for $7,400,000.00 in signing bonus money if they released him after this season. So if Green Bay kept him just this season, and then released him in 2020, they would ultimately have a cap hit of $21,837,500.00 for just one season of play.

Release - $11,100,000.00

If Green Bay were to release Nick Perry outright, they would have to pay him $11,100,000.00. Now there are options in each of these scenarios to split the cap hit up over time, but ultimately you are robbing Peter to pay Paul, and you’d still end up taking the cap hit down the road.

So which option would you rather have?

0 years - $11,100,000.00

1 year – $21,873,500.00

2 years - $32,437,500.00

3 years - $42,837,500.00

The unfortunate truth is that Green Bay has to pay that $11.1 million bonus no matter what. The fortunate truth is they don’t have to pay him a dime of the other $31.7+ million if they take their medicine now and move on from the bad contract. $11.1 million is never easy to swallow, but it’s ultimately the best option of the four.

Jimmy Graham

Old Man Jimmy Graham- Contract- 3 yrs $30,000,000. Essentially a 2 year contract The contract to haunt Gute. Cutting a 32 year old WR to sign a then 31 year old TE. McCarthy’s stubbornness to play him inline & Graham’s effort was disastrous. #Packers pic.twitter.com/YK14Lcza4V — Eye In The Sky (@The_Green_Gold) January 1, 2019

Per Spotrac, Jimmy Graham’s remaining contract looks like this:

Like Perry, Graham’s guarantees are completely tied to his signing bonuses. No matter what happens, Green Bay will have to take the $7,333,334.00 cap hit over the next two seasons. There is no way out of that money. Like Perry, let’s take a look at the three options that Green Bay has with Jimmy Graham:

2 years - $24,333,334.00 - $12,166,667.00/year

Again, this is the easy one. If Green Bay keeps Graham for both years the contract will play out as-is and there’s nothing too complex about it. At this point it’s a 2-year deal worth $24.3 million and an average value of $12.2 million per year.

1 year - $16,333,334.00 - $16,333,334.00/year

Once again, this is the same exact idea as Nick Perry. If they keep him this year he would play out this season with a cap hit of $12,666,666.00 and when he’s released next year he would have a cap hit of the remaining signing bonus which would be $3,666,668.00. So in total they’d pay $16,333,334.00 for only one season of Jimmy Graham.

Release - $7,333,334.00

If they were to release Graham this season they’d of course still owe the $7,333,334.00 but they would save the remainder of the contract; thus saving a total of $17 million over the course of the next two seasons.

So again, which option would you rather have?

0 years - $7,333,334.00

1 year - $16,333,334.00

2 years - $23,333,334.00

It’s a very tough pill to swallow again to take a $7.3+ million cap hit and get absolutely nothing in return. But of the three options that are available, it’s still probably the best. Paying $16 million for one season of Graham is massively overpaying, even if you only get a portion of the money back.

If Nick Perry is hurt, so be it. Let him get healthy. Because right now, he ain’t got it. pic.twitter.com/O3tD33iYoo — Andy Herman (@SconnieSports) November 9, 2018

It should of course be noted that with June 1st designations that many times they can split these cap hits over multiple seasons. But as I mentioned above, you’re simply delaying the cap hits until the future and it still ends up hurting in the end. Green Bay would be wise to release both Graham and Perry in 2019, and take the full cap hit this season. Green Bay won’t struggle for cap space, and better to take the medicine now and set yourself up better for 2020.

It’s never, ever easy to release players, take huge cap hits, and get nothing in return, but faced with the choices above, it’s absolutely time to move on from Graham and Perry now, rather than later.