Denver Broncos: Predicting a Possible Justin Simmons Contract

Basic contract parameters

To understand what a future deal is going to look like, we need to look at the current safety market.  When looking at these deals, it’s important to look at two key metrics:

1. Average value per year: Currently the top-5 safeties in the league in money, Eddie Jackson, Kevin Byard, Tyrann Mathieu, Landon Collins, and Earl Thomas, average between $13.75 -14.6 million.  Simmons is going to be the top-paid safety in the league, so it’s easy to say that the average annual value will come in slightly ahead of that.  A reasonable estimate would be $15-15.2 million per year.
2. Guaranteed money:  This is where it gets a bit trickier to predict because you need to factor in a few other things such as age and deal length.  It’s easy to give a great safety who may be a bit older a deal that averages $14 million per year but is for only 2 years with only the first year guaranteed.  The average guaranteed money for the top-5 current safeties ranges between $26.8 million and $44.5 million, and that is only looking at total guarantees for injury.  Fully guaranteed at signing is a bit lower, ranging between $19.63 million and $32 million.

Considering that Justin Simmons is 27 years old, we would want to throw out the Earl Thomas number and look at the other four on the list as he’s roughly the same age.  The best two comparisons would be Eddie Jackson and Landon Collins who received total guarantees of $33 million and $44.5 million respectively.  Again, Simmons will likely want to come in a bit higher, so a total guarantee of around $46-47 million would be a safe bet.

Estimated Parameters:

• 5-years
• $75 million total
• $15 million average annual value
• $47 million Total guarantees
• $36 million Fully guaranteed at signing