We doubt the Green Bay Packers got off with much of a hometown discount when they signed defensive end Mike Daniels to a four-year extension Monday morning, but Daniels made one thing clear after signing the deal. He had no intention of leaving.
“My agent called me, gave me the lay, and had to agree with him,” Daniels said. “I told him I wanted to be in Green Bay. I want to be with this team. This team is in it every year. It’s a great, historic franchise. We had quite a few vets from other teams, free agents, my rookie year, and all they kept saying to us rookies were, ‘Wow, you guys you don’t understand how fortunate you are to start your careers off in Green Bay.’ Why would I want to go anywhere else? So my agent, I told him ‘Make sure we’re still in Green Bay,’ and he did.”
Daniels’ deal adds four years to the final year of his rookie contract, which he’s currently in.
His 2015 take-home pay will be the original $1,542,000 base salary from that rookie deal plus his brand spanking new $12 million signing bonus. Overall, Daniels got $22 million guaranteed as part of the new deal.
If you look at the deal in terms of new money, Daniels averages $10.5 million annually. For salary cap purposes, it appears the Packers will be spreading the money over five years, which includes the current one.
All that does is reduce Daniels’ annual cap hit.
So Daniels’ charge against the cap in 2015 jumped from a little over $1.6 million to just over $4 million.
With his new annual salary, Daniels is the ninth-highest paid defensive end in the league.
Well deserved, as far as we’re concerned.