In case you weren't already convinced that the NFL salary cap (and perhaps the concept of money itself??) is completely fake, news broke last night that Saints quarterback Taysom Hill had just signed a four-year, $140 million contract extension. Yes, I am talking about that Taysom Hill, and I did not mean to type $14 instead of $140.
The thing is, not one cent of that $140 million is real. All of the money and years that were loaded into Hill's contract extension are set to void automatically, and the purpose of their existence in a quantum state is simply to allow the Saints to engage in some creative accounting that will shave some money off their cap number this season. Meanwhile, Hill will just go on earning the money he was already due to earn before the extension was signed, knowing full well that he'll never see the big payday his contract would seem to provide on the surface.
Taysom Hill’s contract numbers this year include a $9.686 million signing bonus, a $1.439 million guaranteed roster bonus and a $1.034 million guaranteed base salary, plus incentives, per source. https://t.co/Ooy7akgPlv
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 14, 2021
If this all seems pretty dumb to you, well, that's because it is. The Saints essentially saw what the Cowboys did by tacking two fake years onto the end of Dak Prescott's contract extension and thought, "What if we made the whole contract out of fake years?" It's an audacious flaunting of salary cap gamesmanship, sure, but in my opinion the Saints didn't go far enough.
If we're going to get crazy and agree that NFL contracts can be as preposterously fake as we want them to be, why not really go for it? Why not sign Hill to a 14-year, $540 billion contract that voids automatically? Why not add an incentive that says Hill can obtain total ownership of the Saints franchise if he throws for 1,000 yards in a single game? Why not mention that, in year 12 of the contract, Hill will be named God-Emperor of the galaxy?
This lack of vision frankly disgusts me. The Saints may not have possessed the creativity and fortitude necessary to craft a truly meaningful fake contract, but perhaps another team will be willing to step up and do what's necessary. To that team I say: My services are available. Fire your so-called "cap guys" and get me an office with a whiteboard and three different colors of markers. Your offer will need to be competitive, though, because I just gave myself a fully voidable $24 million raise, so it's not like I'm desperate for work.
