Paul Kruger signs with Saints; how much money did he lose?

It didn’t take long for Paul Kruger to find a new home, as the New Orleans Saints signed him on Wednesday to a 1-year, $3 million deal. According to ESPN, the deal is worth up to $5 million in incentives. It’s still early, so we don’t know if any of that $3 million was part of a signing bonus, or if everything is tied to a non-guaranteed base salary. For argument’s sake, let’s say that it’s all related to his base salary — how much money did Kruger lose, then?

Kruger was set to have the second-highest cap number on the Browns’ defense at $7.7 million for 2016, but that included a $1.2 million signing bonus. That signing bonus was pro-rated (as it is with everyone’s contract) over the life of the initial contract he signed in 2013, and came to a total of $6 million. When it comes to physical cash spending, that money was paid to Kruger back in 2013. That means that Kruger was expecting to collect $6.5 million from the Browns in 2016, and then potentially $7 million in 2017.

For 2016, if Kruger doesn’t reach his incentives, it’ll be a net loss of $3.5 million compared to what he was expecting. That’s why I feel he reacted the way he did in his goodbye tweet to the Browns; with teams basically finalizing their roster and him having been a starter up until that point, he was completely caught off guard with seeing the zeroes.