re: Cam Cameron gets paid $600k 1st yr $1.3M 2nd, $1.5M 3rd

quote:

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What exactly does that mean?

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Suppose the contract with Baltimore says something like, "If you're fired, we will pay you your salary for 2013, but anything we owe you will be reduced by anything you make if you get another job in 2013." If the Ravens owed him $100 for 2013, and LSU agreed to pay him $100, then the Ravens would owe nothing. If his deal with LSU is no pay for 2013, and $200 for 2014, the Ravens might be expected to argue that he's obviously just deferring his 2013 pay of $100 from LSU in order to get an extra $100 from them, and he should be treated, for purposes of the Ravens contract, as having gotten $100 for 2013.

No doubt both his Ravens contract and his LSU contract are more sophisticated in their wording, but that's the basic idea.