Details on Joe Flacco's Extension

In what has been a whirlwind day for the NFL's highest paid Quarterback, Joe Flacco remained Joe Flacco.

He took his check down for his teammate buddies to ooh and ah over, after receiving it.  They were on the team basketball court, and he walked in with a $40 Million dollar disbursement. As I told my Baltimore Beatdown colleagues, if I were there, I would have immediately offered, "Play you for it!"

Flacco said right after he signed the deal, he took his check downstairs to show his teammates. Biggest check they'd ever seen.

— Sarah Ellison (@sgellison) March 2, 2016

The details of the deal have trickled down the interwebs throughout the day, piece by piece. Here they are in abbreviated form:

Flacco was scheduled to have a base salary of 18 Million, which was reduced to 4 million. He was supposed to have a signing bonus which had previously been paid, but the cap amount calculated for this season was  5.8 million. Now, he gets a signing bonus of 40 million. That was the way the Ravens could make him the richest QB in the league, but not take it all against the cap this season. The amount counted against this season's cap is 13.8 million. It all comes down to a cap savings of 6 million--for this season. A look at  the chart below shows that there is a 7 million dollar cap hit savings for next season, also.

From the Excellence of Spotrac.com

In order to appreciate the difference, here is the previous status (which includes the BB prediction):

The details of this contract are nothing but positive for Baltimoreans and Ravens Nation at large.

• GM Ozzie Newsome reiterated that this was not to needed, and indicated that Flacco wanted to make room for teammates.
• Newsome also said that this deal was not for the sake of cap space, but to secure Joe Flacco for 6 more years.
• Flacco said he wants to play until he is 40, and wants it all to be in Baltimore.
• Pundits now point to Kelechi Osemele as being the immediate benefactor of this extra cap space.