Yesterday, Cole Harvey tweeted that Mike Brown said that Andy Dalton's next deal should be "around (Colin) Kaepernick's."
Kaepernick recently received a six year, $126 million deal. $21 million a year is more than a lot of us expected. After a long negotiating process, one's first reactions might be:
What is Brown thinking? (by offering so much to a quarterback seemingly no one outside of the Bengals organization has much confidence in)
and
What is Dalton thinking? (by continuing to negotiate instead of taking the offer)
But according to SI.com, the proposed deal, like Kaepernick's, may be designed to avoid crippling the team in case of injury or poor performance. Kaepernick's contract:
[I]s seen as team friendly because only $13 million is guaranteed, and his base salaries from 2015 to 2017 are guaranteed only for injury; If the 49ers cut him prior to April 1 of each year, they face a minimal penalty.
Perhaps Dalton's agent is a bit more cautious and doesn't want to leave Dalton with relatively little if his client does not perform well and is cut. Instead, the Dalton camp may be working to get a deal closer to Jay Cutler's ($54 million guaranteed).
Another detail that emerged from Harvey's interview with Brown is that Dalton will be the team's QB for the "immediate future." I'm really worried about how my good friend, President of the Andy Dalton Hater club, and, as of May 10, President of the A.J. McCarron Fan club, Hodgie E. Smodgie, will take this. Of course, this could in fact be a way of saying that management is open to pursuing other options beyond this year if negotiations fail. Hold your chin up, Hodgie!