The Philadelphia Eagles announced a five-year extension for right-tackle Lane Johnson this morning, one that guarantees him $35.5 million. The deal essentially rips up the final season of his rookie year, allowing the Eagles to split the money between 2016 and what would have been an option year in 2017. So for all intents and purposes, this is a six-year deal, as the Eagles announced it.
It's unclear exactly how the cap-hits in each season of Johnson's new extension will shake out, but if you calculate the approximate amount of money that Johnson would be getting each season, it rounds out to $10.5 million. As many have pointed out, his cap-hit isn't going to be exactly that high, but it will probably still be more than the $6.128 million he was scheduled to have.
In terms of average annual salary, the highest in the league for a right-tackle entering 2015 was Green Bay Packers' right-tackle Bryan Bulaga, who is estimated to make $6.75 million per season and got $8 million guaranteed as part of the five-year extension he agreed to prior to the season. The top total guaranteed dollars at the position come from Jeremy Parnell of the Jacksonville Jaguars ($14.5 million) and 2015 Washington Redskins' first-round pick Brandon Scherff who was guaranteed $21.2 million. Neither have a higher average annual salary than Bulaga.
Again, Johnson was guaranteed $35.5 million and his contract suggests he will be making close to $10.5 million per season. That doesn't sound like someone who the team plans to have playing right-tackle much longer.
Johnson did play some left-tackle in 2016 while Jason Peters was injured, and did so at a high level. Given that Peters is 34 years-old, struggled to stay healthy last year and just seemed to take a step back in general, was Johnson's extension a sign that the Eagles are ready to move on from Peters?
Peters is scheduled to be one of the league's highest paid left-tackles in terms of annual salary and has a cap-hit of $9.327 million, which is among the highest in the league at his position.
The Eagles could attempt to keep both Peters and Johnson as two of the top 10 highest paid tackles in the league for one more season, though it would seem that would make it difficult for the team to keep Sam Bradford and Vinny Curry, while also hoping to extend Fletcher Cox and use free-agency to fix some of the holes that the team has.
Everything could change if Peters was willing to re-do his deal in the same way that Brent Celek just did, though it seems strange that if the Eagles thought that was a realistic option they wouldn't have approached him about doing that during this flurry of moves. Technically, they may have done that, but given that Peters is an eight-time Pro-Bowler and seemed offended when even asked if he would consider a position change, it's hard to imagine that being something that he would consider.
In the end, the two sides may end up parting ways, be it in a trade for a late-round pick or an altogether release. What extending some young leaders like Johnson and Zach Ertz (while also holding onto someone like Celek) does is it gives leeway for the Eagles to make a move due to cap reasons. It doesn't come off as what Chip Kelly did last season where he purged too much of the locker-room in one off-season, it comes off as moving on from a future hall-of-famer that the team has decided isn't worth his salary anymore. It is, as players always like to say, a business, and when a majority of the team's core is extended in an off-season, moves like potentially moving on from Peters start to feel much less personal.
Contract information courtesy of Spotrac and Over The Cap.
Tim Kelly (@TimKellySports) is an editorial assistant for Eagledelphia.com.
