Archuleta traded to Bears for 6th round pick

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by CrazyCanuck

Wow! I just saw this now.

Schneed, looks like you were right on. From the Post:

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"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!"

I agree, I posted comments in another thread which are applicable here in this one, so I'll paste:

If I can add one comment, absolutely genius move by the 'Skins.

- We cleared his contract off the 08 and 09 years, which helped immensely because our cap was getting heavy in those years.

- We got rid of a huge free agent mistake without taking a huge cap penalty.

- We actually got a 6th round pick for someone who is a complete bum in our system.

Setting up Archuleta's deal as $5 million guaranteed up front, and $5 million guaranteed one year later is what allowed us to make this move. If we had given him all $10 million up front, this move would have been impossible. Genius contract structuring by our front office, showing that they know how to plan for contingencies when going after free agents. It shows they actually put thought into what they're doing, rather than just running willy-nilly and buying up every player in sight.

Bravo, Danny, bravo.