Breakdown of WR Rashard Higgins’ contract with the Browns

Last week, the Cleveland Browns re-signed veteran WR Rashard Higgins to a 1-year deal worth $2.377 million. He acknowledged that yes, he could have gone to another team for an extra million or so, but he truly likes being a part of the Browns and what is being built here.

I predicted a 2-year deal worth $4.5 million for Higgins; so on a per-year basis, I wasn’t too far off. It appears that Cleveland will actually incur a much smaller cap hit for Higgins, though, as I’ll explain below.

• Higgins’ contract is fully guaranteed, which consists of $2.24 million from his base salary and his $137,500 million signing bonus. Therefore, there’s no incentive for Cleveland to cut him at any point this season.
• Previously, we talked about how LB Malcolm Smith qualified for the veteran salary benefit. As it turns out, Higgins qualifies for a special variation of that benefit called the “four-year qualifying contract.” It is used for players who have been on the team for four uninterrupted years, which applies to Higgins.
• The way you calculate the “four-year qualifying contract” is that you take the minimum salary for that player. Looking at the table and knowing that Higgins has four years of services, the minimum salary is $990,000. Only that portion of Higgins’ base salary counts against the cap, plus his signing bonus. Then, the four-year qualifying contract allows the Browns to pay Higgins up to $1.25 million in additional base salary that does not count toward the cap.
• Therefore, Higgins’ cap hit for 2021 is just $1.127 million — an even nice bargain, and a smart way for GM Andrew Berry to utilize the benefit, which can only be applied to one or two players per season. Since Cleveland has already used the full $1.25 million on Higgins, they cannot use it on any other player in 2021.