So does that mean that all the stories that came out when he was re-signed that indicated that his contract was written to make him easy to trade were not as honest or accurate as they seemed?

Bonuses and guaranteed money are not as simple, especially now, as some (including myself) presume(d). I used to think “bonuses” fell into two categories: signing and roster. I thought the only reason signing bonuses count as “guaranteed” was that they were paid immediately. Everything else was not guaranteed, and you could cut or trade a player without having to pay anything else.

The truth turns out to be a bit murkier. Many bonuses that are similar in structure to roster bonuses are actually guaranteed (much more common in extensions and FA than rookie contracts). Much of DA’s contract is legitimately guaranteed. Roughly $13M of it, if I recall correctly.

obviously, any talk of what DA would return in a trade is pure speculation, but if matt cassel is franchised by NE, and McNabb goes back to philly, suddenly the QB pool this offseason becomes a lot shallower (more shallow?). that figures to enhance the Browns’ position in any DA-related move. in my very uneducated opinion, i think you could get as much as a 3rd rounder for DA.

As I understand it:

Contract is for three years, $24M total. $7M signing bonus +$5M 2009 roster bonus + $2M 2010 roster bonus + $1M incentives = $15M non-salary dollars. That leaves $9M in salary, let’s assume three per year.

The question is likely to become which package is better?

A) Above average backup with experience at (approximately) $10.33M (pro-rated signing bonus + salary plus roster bonus) salary cap hit

or

B) (approximately) $5.67M in salary cap space ($10.33M less the remainder of the pro-rated signing bonus, $2.33M x 2) + whatever draft pick(s) we get in return

Matt Schaub got 2 2nd round picks when he was Mike Vick’s backup. DA has been to the Pro Bowl and has a very, very strong arm. A lot of coaches are cocky and think they can coach up a player whose former coaches have failed him. There is a high demand in the NFL for QBs, even with a pair of rookies leading their teams to the playoffs.

Because of these things, DA will get us more than he should in a trade. Whether we make a move now or during training camp or later, we will get something good for one of our QBs.

Backup QBs are fairly easy to find at a lot cheaper prices than what we are paying for DA.

I don’t think a lot of people have doubted the moves he made. We backed the acquiring of Thomas, Quinn, Shaun Rogers, and Corey Williams. Of the four, Williams disappointed last year, but there’s always room for improvement in a modified system under a new coaching staff. If we had kept Savage, I don’t think the acquiring of personnel would have been a problem.

That brings up the problem though — Savage made too much “negative” noise this season away from his job of making personnel decisions. We clearly wanted a new head coach this season, and a lot of the candidates on the market that Lerner was interested in seemed to want personnel control too. With that being the case, Savage’s role would be lessened, and the “chemistry” factor probably wouldn’t be there as it would’ve been with Pioli (had we gone with Ferentz/McDaniels) or Kokinis w/ Mangini as it seems we are headed towards.

A lot of intimations have been made stating that Savage had trouble working with others. The FO, outside of his talent acquisition moves (obviously the most important part of his job), seems to have been close to chaos, largely because of Savage.

Even if he gets a B+ on his talent acquisition, apparently he flunked everything else. He may have been handicapping the coach, and when the coach is as seemingly terrible as Crennel that’ll result in a losing squad.

There are also intimations, as Chris notes above, that his demands were handicapping the future coach search. Lerner didn’t feel as if he could allow that, and perhaps (we may never know) he was right to do so.

I always liked Phil, I loved most of his moves (except for passing on Ngata, @#$!). I wanted to see him stay, but from leaked reports so far, it seems like that may have been a poor decision. We’ll have to wait and see, as always…

I agree with this sentiment but have as little idea of what was going on behind closed doors as everyone else.

Savage made us a much more talented team, and although arguments that we couldn’t have gotten worse after 2005 have merit, he still was responsible for getting what talent we do have.

Hopefully, we can just steal another of your top talent evaluators and replicate the improvement we had when Savage got here.