Wow! I just saw this now.
Schneed, looks like you were right on. From the Post:
washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines
"The Redskins and Archuleta agreed to postpone his original deadline of March 12 to receive his bonus payment in order to facilitate a trade, and the Bears, whose coach, Lovie Smith, has a strong relationship with the safety from their time together in St. Louis, ultimately agreed to pick up that $5 million payment as part of the deal, sources said, beating today's new deadline for the option."
IMO this is UNBELIEVABLE!!! Snyder pulled a real coup here. I don't know how we convinced them to give us a 6th rounder AND take the $5M bonus payment.
I didn't know they could but I'm loving it!
I'm not sure if it's a change in the CBA, or if Snyder's just getting smarter with the signing bonuses, but it's been a trend with our recent signings. Arch, Randle-El, Carter, Lloyd, Samuels, Rabach, Patten, Jansen, Thomas, Moss, Taylor all had their signing bonuses split over the first 2 years of the contract. I figured this was just a way to delay some money past the current year, but now I see how valuable it can be. If you screw up on a guy (Arch), you still have time to recoup some of the signing bonus.
As Frank the Tank once said, "It's genius!"