Miguel's Mailbag: Crafting a fair deal for Trey Flowers

All right, everyone. Let's dive into this week's question:

Question from Twitter follower Mark Schofield: What are your thoughts on bringing Trent Brown and Trey Flowers back next season?

Answer: I addressed Trent Brown last week. Mark's question offered me this opportunity to illustrate what happens during contract negotiations.



First, some background information:

4-3 defensive end deals ranked by paper average per year:

• Olivier Vernon - $17,000,000


• Jason Pierre-Paul - $15,000,000


• Calais Campbell - $15,000,000


• Danielle Hunter - $12,317,833

• Olivier Vernon - $17,000,000


• Jason Pierre-Paul - $15,000,000


• Calais Campbell - $15,000,000


• Robert Quinn - $14,841,857

• Games Played


• Pro Football Focus's Average Grade


• Pro Football Reference's Approximate Value


• Tackles


• Tackles for Loss


• Sacks


• Quarterback Hits

• Flowers is the team's best defensive player.


• he should be paid as such. Therefore, Stephon Gilmore's $13 million APY deal has to be surpassed.


• he is closer to free agency than Hunter was when he signed his extension.


• the cap has shown a pattern of increasing between 6 percent and 8 percent a year and looks to continue to do for the near future. For example, we learned this week that the 2019 cap is projected to be between $187 million and $191.1 million.


• that a $15 million APY deal is a large discount if one adjusts Vernon's 17M deal to the increases in the cap. The 2019 cap will be between 20.4% and 20.9% higher than the 2016 cap of $155.27 million. Increase Vernon's deal with those percentages and we get APYs between 20.4 million and 20.9 million.


• Flowers' play is graded highly by non-traditional stats.

• Total value:  $75,000,000


• Length:  5 years


• Average per year $15,000,000


• Signing bonus:  $20,000,000


• Full guarantee:  $35,000,000


• Total guarantee:  $46,000,000


• Two-year cash:  $36,500,000


• Three-year cash:  $48,250,000