Michael Lehan Re-Signs

While it's not earth-shattering news that the Dolphins will re-sign marginal starting cornerback Michael Lehan, the way his contract is set up is an indication of things to come.

Lehan signed a 3-year $5 million dollar deal. Typically these contracts come backloaded, with the final year worth something like 50-60% of the total contract. That's done to leave cap space open until the very end when the player is cut unless he completely exceeds expectations.

In this case, Lehan is set to make nearly 50% of the deal (2.1 million) in 2008. This could mean one of two things. First, it could just be an indication that the Dolphins are aware of the whopping $44 million in cap space they have to work with and feel they can afford to frontload the deal to protect against the cap in future years where most deals will go up in value and we will have less cap space to go around.

Conversely, they might be frontloading the deal because they are required to spend a certain minimum towards the cap (which they are well below right now) and don't really expect to make a major splash in free agency. They figure that they might as well frontload deals now to get close to that minimum threshold while giving them the opportunity to really spend money in the next offseason or two.

I'm not sure which scenario is being played out. One thing is for sure, this free agent market isn't exactly a bountiful one. We have a whole lot of cash to spend and not a whole lot of talent to spend it on. The high salary cap figure allows most teams to keep their players. The only guys we'll get are castoffs, overpriced veterans, or the rare quality free agents that top teams couldn't afford to keep around.