How Jimmy Graham won with his new contract

Jimmy Graham was always going to get paid. He was always going to remain with the New Orleans Saints. And he was always going to become the league’s richest tight end (or pass catcher, if he prefers).

It was all inevitable and a matter of compromise. Since all humans are motivated by deadlines, the deal came hours before the July 15 zero hour at 4 p.m. ET to reach a long-term agreement with a franchised player.

What are we left with then after months of debating the great divide between Graham the tight end and Graham the wide receiver? A contract that pays him fairly for his services, and allows him to get paid again.

Let’s dive in with three thoughts.

All about the term

Graham received a four-year contract worth $40 million, $20 million of which is guaranteed. Those are the initial, overarching numbers, sorcery the Colin Kaepernick contract taught us to never trust.

But an odd thing happens upon further inspection: those surface figures pretty much hold up.

Graham received a $12 million signing bonus along with a $1 million base salary for 2014, according to ProFootballTalk. Some simple arithmetic there leads to a whopping total haul for next season: $13 million.

Then there’s a slight trick, as the Saints could cut Graham three days after next winter’s Super Bowl and not owe him the remaining $8 million in guaranteed cash. Since the chances of that happening rest somewhere below zero, let’s go ahead and call this $20 million guaranteed, rolling with the original number.

The average annual base salary of $10 million is a sizeable chunk of change more than what Graham was scheduled to make under the tight end franchise tag of $7.053 million, and it represents a soft middle ground between the $12.132 million he was seeking as a tagged wide receiver. But Graham truly cashed in with the length of the deal, or rather the lack of it.

He’s 27 years old, and he already has two seasons with double-digit touchdowns and over 1,200 receiving yards on his record (most recently, 1,215 yards on 86 receptions, with 16 touchdowns). What’s frightening is that given his youth and nearly immediate dominance, Graham will still be in his peak years throughout the entire life of this new contract. Assuming he stays healthy, he’s given us little reason not to think his production will remain at the same level or even rise further, especially with his heavy usage in the Saints offense (142 targets in 2013).

Then at the age of 31, he’ll get paid again. With the past contract precedents and the steadily rising salary cap each year, getting two contracts with a guaranteed $20 million (or north of that) is conceivable.

In 2010 Antonio Gates was entering his age 30 season, and he received $20.4 million guaranteed. There there’s Jason Witten, who was given $19 million guaranteed at 29, and Tony Gonzalez pocketed $17 million way back in the before time of 2007, when he was 31.

The brevity of the commitment leads to more gold for Graham, after his gold now.

Graham might not be a wide receiver, but he’s still getting paid like one

There was a kerfuffle that nearly ended in bloodshed regarding Graham’s position.

Graham believed that according to the language of the collective bargaining agreement, he’s entitled to be considered a wide receiver for franchise tag purposes (he spent 67 percent of his snaps lined up somewhere other than in-line as a traditional tight end).

But his stance didn’t jive with the arbitrary line smudged by Stephen Burbank, who determined that since Graham was either in-line or placed within four yards of the tackle for the majority of his snaps, the franchise tag should still consider him a tight end. The argument spiraled into the silliness of Twitter bios and which position meetings Graham attended, and the difference between the two tags was just over $5 million.

In the end, it all kind of, sort of didn’t matter. Graham is still getting paid like a wide receiver.

Not a top wide receiver of course, or in the top tier. But he’s one rung below, and financially in this neighborhood (both in terms of base salary and guaranteed money)…

• Brandon Marshall (four years at $10 million annually, $22.3 million guaranteed)

• Greg Jennings (five years at $9 million annually, $17.8 million guaranteed)

• Roddy White (six years at $8 million annually, $18.6 million guaranteed)

• DeSean Jackson ($8 million annually, $16 million guaranteed)

The middle ground found by Graham and the Saints places him among high-producing wide receivers. And well ahead of some, a cashout that wouldn’t have been available under the tight end franchise tag.

What does this mean for the future?

Julius Thomas will provide the real fun. At 26 years old the Broncos tight end is entering a contract year, and doing it after a season with 788 yards and 12 touchdowns, all while missing two games. Seeing that yardage number baloon past 1,000 in 2014 isn’t a difficult future to imagine. He’ll be sprinkled with Peyton Manning’s quite accurate pixie dust for at least one more season, and he’ll be leaned on more heavily with Eric Decker gone.

Thomas won’t match Graham’s dollars, because his history of production isn’t nearly as deep. But a new standard at the top of the pay pyramid drags everyone else up proportionately, and with his youth Thomas could easily get about $8 million annually now. Then like Graham, he’ll cash in again four-to-five years from now with prime seasons still left.