Holy crap, this is hilarious.
Chiefs agree to extension for TE Gonzalez
Jay Glazer / FOXSports.com
Posted: 3 hours ago
The Kansas City Chiefs have reached an agreement on a contract extension with Tony Gonzalez, their future Hall Of Fame tight end.
Early Friday, Gonzalez told FOXSports.com that he was very close to a five-year extension to remain in Kansas City rather than hit the free agent market.
The deal includes a stunning $17.750 million in guaranteed bonus money and averages more than $6.25 million per year — huge numbers for a tight end — with $18.750 million over the first three years.
In comparison, Chargers All-Pro tight end Antonio Gates had $10 million guaranteed in his deal.
"I'm happy that I get to end my career where it started," Gonzalez told FOXSports.com. "I really didn't know what was going to happen for a while but in the end the Chiefs really stepped up for me.
"I'm waiting for the contract right now to get the final version and I plan to sign it later today."
The lone sticking point earlier Thursday had been the structure of the deal — how much of the money is back-loaded and how much is put into the first three years of the contract. Agent Tom Condon and the Chiefs continued to hammer out terms of the deal in the wee hours of Friday morning, and eventually reached an agreement.
"I think he deserved this contract," Chiefs general manager Carl Peterson said. "Was it more than I wanted to pay? Sure. It always is. But he is, in my opinion, the best tight end in pro football. This allows him to be compensated as he deserves. There have been some rookies who came in and got bigger signing bonuses, but put it all together, Tony's been the highest-paid tight end in the NFL for several years, and this makes sure he will remain so."
Had Gonzalez not agreed to the new deal, he had until 4 p.m. EST Friday to send in a letter voiding his contract in order to become an unrestricted free agent. Earlier in the year he told FOXSports.com that he would void and hit the open market if they could not agree on a substantial raise from his previous deal.
Had he hit the open market he would have had serious interest from a handful of teams looking to upgrade their receiving corps. In addition, the Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards in their year-end meeting ensured Gonzalez that they would use his receiving skills even more next year than they had down the stretch this season.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Now that
is funny. Well they can probably kiss their chances of landing a solid free agent in off season goodbye. I can't believe they paid him that when he's entering the twilight of his career. Actually I can considering what Law got.
He's good, but that's way too much money especially when he's going to be blocking most of the time. What a joke.