D.J. Humphries contract details: Cardinals avoid long-term dead money

The Arizona Cardinals appear to have protected themselves well if worst-case injury scenarios strike newly-extended left tackle D.J. Humphries in the coming years.

Humphries officially inked a three-year, $45 million contract on Tuesday with nearly two-thirds of that total guaranteed if he remains on the roster through the start of the 2021 league year, according to OverTheCap.com.

While that’s a lot of guaranteed cash — something Arizona clearly feels the 2015 first-round pick has earned — the Cardinals also aren’t in bad shape if his injury history portends to more troubles down the line.

Arizona will only be counting $1.6 million of dead money against the cap if Humphries is cut prior to June 1 of 2021 and just $800,000 for the 2022 season, according to OverTheCap.com.

So even though his 2021 salary will be fully guaranteed when that NFL season officially begins, the Cardinals would have preserved the cap space if they release him.

Of course, Arizona hopes none of that matters and that two knee injuries that ended his 2017 and 2018 seasons prematurely don’t forecast future problems.

Humphries started and played in every game of the 2019 season, giving up just two sacks and one quarterback hit.

The Cardinals will pay their starting left tackle a base salary of $11.5 million this coming year, $15.1 million in 2021 and $13.25 million in the third and final season if he is still on the team, per OverTheCap.com.

Humphries’ contract had a $2.4 million signing bonus that pro-rates, spreading out as a $800,000 hit to the salary cap in each of the next three seasons.

His contract also includes a $500,000 per-year roster bonus sliced up by game. That fractions out to $31,250 earned for every game that he’s on the team. He has an additional $500,000 roster bonus for the 2022 season.

As for this year, Humphries’ salary counts as $12.8 million, giving Arizona a little more cap space than the average of $15 million would have allowed. Per OverTheCap.com, the Cardinals have $39.7 million in cap space after the signing.

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