Josh Norman Contract

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Per a source with knowledge of the deal, Norman will receive a $15 million signing bonus along with $36.5 million fully guaranteed, earned over the first two years. While that’s not $50 million (duh), it’s a great payout for a deal signed on April 22. The first three years are strong as well.

Norman will make $20 million through the first year, $37 million (if he earns a $500,000 46-man roster bonus in 2017, as he likely will) through 2017, and $51 million through 2018. That’s more than Norman would have gotten under two years of the franchise tag in Carolina, where his $13.95 million tender in 2016 would have become $16.74 million in 2017, for a total of $30.69 million over two seasons.

If Washington chooses not to keep Norman through three years at $51 million (an average of $17 million per year), he’ll exit with $18.5 million per year over two. (They’ll have to make a decision early in his third year; the balance of his injury-only guarantee becomes fully-guaranteed on the fifth day of the 2018 league year.)

With the deal paying out $51 million over the first three years, the likelihood of Washington keeping Norman over the full five years increases, since he makes $11.5 million in 2019 and $12.5 million in 2020, numbers that will be well below the market for high-end cornerbacks by the end of the decade.

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