Cam Newton's New Deal Sets Course for Huge Paydays for Wilson and Luck

The new quarterback contracts tumble into place one by one like dominoes. They form a path that leads us toward the future of football finance.

Ryan Tannehill's deal two weeks ago was the first to topple. It was a relatively modest contract extension, but then Tannehill has a relatively modest resume. The first stage in a chain reaction is always a little underwhelming; it's the last stage that's a doozy.

Tannehill cleared a path for Cam Newton to earn up to $103.8 million in new money atop the $14.67 million he was due to make this year, with $60 million guaranteed, in the new agreement he reached with the Panthers on Tuesday. The Newton contract was not just another nine-figure whopper; it was a deal that had to be struck before we could move forward with the next wave of quarterback contracts.

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Newton was the first rookie drafted under the new 2011 rookie cap, the first quarterback to get locked into a four-year deal with a fifth-year option that paid him far less than what Sam Bradford and Matthew Stafford received in previous years. Tannehill bused away the dirty dishes of deals like Colin Kaepernick's fiasco, establishing a new minimum baseline for the second contracts of post-2011 starting quarterbacks. Newton reset the table by creating new guaranteed-money benchmarks for young superstars with playoff credentials.

Soon, it will be time for Russell Wilson and Andrew Luck to feast.

Common sense dictates that Luck and Wilson will earn more than Newton: They have better stats, better playoff records and better overall reputations. Luck, Wilson, the Colts and the Seahawks needed Newton to set the market, just as all three quarterbacks, their agents and their teams needed Tannehill to steer off the track like a pace car before the green flag. You can't earn more than Newton if you don't know what Newton earns.

The Colts and Seahawks knew they would be asked to jump. The Newton deal tells them how high.

It's pretty high: $30 million in first-year money alone. But the jump is also broad: $60 million in guaranteed money is the new NFL gold standard, eclipsing what Ndamukong Suh received a few months ago, trumping the $54 million guarantee Aaron Rodgers received in 2013, and whetting Wilson and Luck's appetites for a whole new level of financial security.

Newton's new contract is loaded with the fins and spoilers necessary for modern salary-cap aerodynamics: a $22.5 million signing bonus and a $7.5 million roster bonus delivered more or less simultaneously and immediately; a low base salary; end-of-contract Monopoly money, and so on. The specifics can cause an accounting headache. The bottom line is that Newton just received gobs of first-year cash and guaranteed cash. Wilson and Luck are going to be asking for more of each.

There are those who will assert that Newton does not deserve a $103.8 million extension. Those same people asserted that Joe Flacco was not worth his reported $120 million in 2013, Matt Ryan his reported $103 million the same year, Andy Dalton his reported $96 million last year, Tannehill his reported $77 million, and Eli Manning, Jay Cutler or Tony Romo their lengthy, hefty contracts.

These people probably don't think Wilson ("product of the system") or Luck ("turnovers, playoff pratfalls") deserve whopping contracts either. In other words, there are those whose sense of quarterback economics bears zero relationship to reality. (Though Cutler's deal really does look a little silly.)

Newton just made what 26-year-old quarterbacks who have gone to two Pro Bowls, reached the playoffs twice, bounced back from injuries and adversity and displayed rare athletic ability are going to make in today's NFL. You either pay your young quarterback market value or go back to the draft-and-development treadmill. Ask the Browns how that works out.

That $103.8 million looks impressive. But even casual fans know that the nine-figure reported value of an NFL contract is stuffed with fluff. Guarantees—injury guarantees, performance guarantees and the elusive "full guarantee" that most normal people think of as an actual guarantee—are a perennial battleground for NFL contract negotiations. So the original $100 million reports about Newton's contract Monday did not stop anyone's presses. We all waited for those guarantees.

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When it comes to guarantees, quarterback contracts are the Wild West.

Colin Kaepernick signed a reported seven-year, $126 million contract this time last year. The deal supposedly had $61 million in guaranteed money. But that $61 million was only guaranteed against injury: the bronze medal of NFL guarantees. Everything else in Kaepernick's deal is more like a pay-as-you-go installment plan; the deal has more emergency exits than a multiplex if the 49ers want to escape the contract.

As Business Insider reported in December, Kaepernick's contract began depreciating just months after he signed it, with one bad season prompting "de-escalators" when Kaepernick failed to meet some ambitious performance incentives.

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Kaepernick's deal was no trendsetter. It was more of what real estate agents call a "white elephant," a weirdo exception to the rest of the marketplace, an old paint factory on a block full of trendy townhouses. Wilson and Luck aren't seeking injury guarantees or de-escalators.

Wilson, who has baseball roots and a baseball agent, is seeking the kind of fully guaranteed contract (according to NFL.com's Ian Rapoport) that middle infielders take for granted but have been inconceivable in the NFL, even for quarterbacks coming off back-to-back Super Bowl appearances. Luck's contract has not been as much of a source of speculation—his fifth-year option locks him up through 2016, while Wilson is in the final year of his modest midround rookie deal—but any Luck deal is likely to have a similar shape to any Wilson deal, and vice versa.

The next wave of quarterbacks are questing for the NFL contractual Holy Grail: a full salary guarantee against injury, performance drops, coaching changes, cap crunches, owner's whims and acts of God. Newton's contract did not bring them the grail. But it tamed the Wild West and established a new standard of living on the frontier.

Tannehill's extension pulled quarterback contracts out of the ditch and pointed them in a more traditional direction. His deal included $21.5 million in full guarantees, plus a second set of full guarantees that Tannehill can easily achieve just by staying on the roster for a year. Staggered full guarantees are all the rage right now—J.J. Watt's contract contains a set of them—and may be as close as Wilson and Luck will get to real snap-to-whistle full-contract guarantees in a league where all guaranteed money must molder in an escrow account.

But Ryan Tannehill is only Ryan Tannehill, just as Andy Dalton (who signed a lucrative-but-conventional contract after Kaepernick in August) is only Andy Dalton. There's a chasm between Tannehill and Dalton and Luck and Wilson. Cam Newton was the only quarterback capable of bridging the span, a player in the same age range and contract situation whose accomplishments lie halfway between those second-tier franchise quarterbacks and the cream of the 2012 crop.

Now that we know what Cam Newton is worth, what will a 26-year-old who won one Super Bowl and came within a few feet of winning a second be worth? How about a 25-year-old quarterback with three straight 11-5 seasons, three straight Pro Bowl berths, three playoff victories and both stats and skills to die for?

Newton just paved the way toward an answer to those questions. Here is what I think will happen next:

• Wilson will sign a new contract before the start of the 2015 regular season. Luck will either follow soon after or wait until the start of the 2016 offseason. The Colts have the luxury of waiting, thanks to the fifth-year option, and can hold Wilson's postseason record against Luck if they need to reel in expectations. The Colts have no incentive to act first.

• Both Wilson and Luck's contracts will be reported in the $140 million range over seven years. Someone may knock on $150 million for drama's sake.

• Wilson will receive $75 million in fully guaranteed money. To get to that figure, the Seahawks will use a staggered set of guarantees: If Wilson is on the roster on the third day of the 2016 league year, 2017 and 2018 become fully guaranteed. Or something like that. It won't be the coveted full guarantee, but it will be close enough to satisfy Wilson and his agent. Wilson will get a signing bonus and roster bonus, like Newton, to crowd even more guaranteed money into the first year of the deal.

• Luck will receive an even bigger bonus and more incentives than Wilson but will not cash in quite as well with full guarantees. The rationale will be that Wilson gets more guaranteed money due to past accomplishments, while Luck gets more incentives for future potential. The reality will be that Luck's agent will want a higher reported number than Wilson received (because he's coming second) but will have to sacrifice something juicy to get it.

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• After the deals are announced, we will spend two days debating whether Luck and Wilson are overpaid, as if starting over at quarterback is really an option for the Seahawks or Colts.

• The Wilson-Luck deals will form the template for the next round of contracts for young superstars, particularly at quarterback. In three years, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota will come looking for more money and more guarantees. The Luck-Wilson contracts will be their starting points.

• And the agreement Newton and the Panthers reached Tuesday will be the starting point for a whole new era.

Contract details courtesy OverTheCap.com unless otherwise noted.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.