Darrelle Revis' deal with Patriots includes $20 million option
The New England Patriots' contract with Darrelle Revis allows them to keep the Pro Bowl cornerback for 2015 – at a cost of $20 million.
According to contract details obtained Thursday morning by USA TODAY Sports, Revis received a $10 million signing bonus on the deal, which includes a $1.5 million guaranteed base salary for 2014 and $500,000 in per-game roster bonuses.
It also contains an option for 2015 that the Patriots would have to exercise by the end of the 2014 league year, locking in a $12 million roster bonus payable April 1, 2015, a base salary of $7.5 million and another $500,000 in per-game roster bonuses.
If the Patriots decline the option – which seems likely given the price, no matter how well Revis plays – it also would prevent them from using the franchise tag, meaning Revis would either get a new deal in New England or hit the open market.
He lasted there only about 4 hours after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers cut him Thursday, rather than paying a $1.5 million roster bonus as part of $16 million in compensation for 2014.
The deal with the Bucs puts Revis, 28, back into the AFC East Division, where his Pro Bowl career began with the New York Jets.
The Patriots needed cornerback help after losing Aqib Talib to a mega-contract with the Denver Broncos on Tuesday, and Revis remains one of the best — even after knee reconstruction surgery that ended his 2012 season.
The Bucs acquired him in a trade last April from the Jets for a pair of draft picks.
But the new regime of coach Lovie Smith and general manager Jason Licht decided his $16 million a year salary was too much to pay a cornerback, even one as good as Revis.
"Anybody can play on our football team, in our scheme, if they have talent, and that's what we have right now," Smith told news reporters.
"And as far as the money — yeah, there's only a certain amount — and as you look what we were able to get: three very good football players, almost for the price of one."
The Bucs signed free agent cornerback Alterraun Verner, as well as defensive linemen Michael Johnson and Clinton McDonald, to contracts Tuesday.
Verner, a Pro Bowl selection himself last season, got $14 million in guarantees on a four-year, $25.5 million contract.
The combined salary cap charge for Johnson, Verner and McDonald this year will be $20.5 million, just $4.5 million more than Revis would have counted on his own.
"Bittersweet? I don't really want to classify it as that," Licht said of cutting Revis. "It was a tough decision. He's a good player, a very good player — we've said from the beginning. But we've been able to add four, five very good players as well."The Bucs also signed tight end Brandon Myers and veteran quarterback Josh McCown, who enters as the favorite to beat out Mike Glennon for the starting job.
A team coming off a tumultuous 4-12 season marked by an infectious disease outbreak in the locker room and an ugly divorce from quarterback Josh Freeman is bent on a fast turnaround, no matter how parting with one of the game's best players might make it appear.
"I definitely would say that we're not trying to build anything slowly," Smith said. "It's not about rebuilding or anything like that."
The Patriots certainly aren't rebuilding, coming off their second consecutive loss in the AFC Championship Game.
Now, they'll have a five-time Pro Bowl pick on their side — and one who knows the division inside and out.
At $12 million, Revis would cost the Patriots barely more than the $11.834 million it would have cost to keep Talib for one year on the franchise tag.
Four NFL cornerbacks had contracts averaging $10 million or more last season. Three of them — Revis, Champ Bailey and Cortland Finnegan — have been cut in the past week. But while the other two wait to find work, Revis had a deal the same day.