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The Packers' four-year, $40 million contract with wide receiver Randall Cobb was made official on Monday afternoon, and now that we're into Tuesday, we have the first reports regarding the structure of the deal.
It appears that Cobb's contract is structured much like the Packers' other deals; the cap hit in the first year of the contract is relatively low, thanks to a fairly large signing bonus and low base salary. In the second year, the player has a roster bonus that kicks in in March, and then the money in the final two years is almost entirely made up of base salary, per-game roster bonuses, and workout bonuses.
Here are the reports from Joel Corry of CBS Sports:
Randall Cobb's 4-year, $40M deal is structured like most of the other Green Bay deals ($13M-signing bonus & $3.5M-March 2016 roster bonus).
— Joel Corry (@corryjoel) March 10, 2015
Randall Cobb's 2015, 2016, 2017 & 2018 salary cap numbers are $5.35M, $9.15M, $12.75M & $12.75M.
— Joel Corry (@corryjoel) March 10, 2015
Randall Cobb has $500k annually in 46-man active per game roster bonuses ($31.25k per game) Typical for Green Bay. Aaron Rodgers has them.
— Joel Corry (@corryjoel) March 10, 2015
Based on these tweets, we believe the structure of the contract looks something like this:
| Year | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
| Signing Bonus | $13M | -- | -- | -- |
| Base Salary | $1.2M | $1.5M | $8.6M | $8.6M |
| March Roster Bonus | -- | $3.5M | -- | -- |
| Per-game roster bonuses | $500k | $500k | $500k | $500k |
| Workout bonus | $400k | $400k | $400k | $400k |
| Pro-rated signing bonus cap hit | $3.25M | $3.25M | $3.25M | $3.25M |
| Total Cap hit | $5.35M | $9.15M | $12.75M | $12.75M |
| Total Cash | $15.1M | $5.9M | $9.5M | $9.5M |
Our initial calculation was accurate, save for the amount of the workout bonus. ESPN's Rob Demovsky has since confirmed that Cobb will earn $400,000 in workout bonuses each year of the deal, which is now reflected above.
Of course, the bottom line for the Packers is the second-to-last row, the cap hit, which Corry reported. Cobb is concerned about the last row, the total cash he will receive. It's spread out pretty well over the length of the deal, with just over half coming in the first two years and just under half in the second half.
As far as the Packers' salary cap is concerned for 2015, they still have quite a bit of room to work with. Using Overthecap's calculator and adding in the contracts for Cobb and Scott Tolzien (whose deal was reported at one year and $1.35 million) the Packers sit with just under $26.7 million in cap space. With a few million to save for the rookie class, the Packers should still have around $23-24 million to work with for 2015.