If you’re like the majority of Jets fans, Wednesday’s news that left tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson had agreed to a contract extension was for you a supremely welcomed relief. After weeks of fretting that the team would deflate under the pressure of a post-championship style financial situation without even first securing the requisite hardware, we can now say without any hesitation that our first pick in the 2006 Draft will be a Jet for as long as he remains a healthy, productive player. Of course, given the information that has seeped out since the announcement, “healthy” and “productive” might be the operative words. According to Pro Football Talk, the six-year, $60 million deal that claims to grant Brick $34.8 million in guaranteed money – the most in the league at his position – actually contains so many caveats and asterisks that it in essence assures him of no more than $2.2 million in addition to his current salary. The team will dole out his new money incrementally based on a series of complicated and Byzantine criterion, most of which boil down to, “Are you still playing?” If the answer is yes, Brick collects most of his money, excepting perhaps for that laughable $1.3 million earned by blocking seven punts. Bent over at The Jets Blog breaks this whole matter down as cleanly as one can, if you’d like to have the numbers laid out for you.

Tannenbaum has always had a reputation for being a math whiz, and a contract such as this, which manages to make the player happy while protecting the Jets from financial disaster, is vintage salary capology. There was a lot of talk earlier in the week of the “Leon Factor,” which proposed that the motivating condition of the Core Four’s demands was a substantial amount of guaranteed money, engineered to protect against a season or career ending injury. In Brick’s case, the “Leon Factor” would seem to have taken a backseat to the Team Factor. Brick and his agent obviously knew what they were signing, and they have sent the message that they are willing to sacrifice upfront money to help lighten the stress of Woody’s wallet. In this sense, fans floating the notion that the Jets have “rewarded” Brick for not complaining about his contract is actually true, if only because his deal was designed to open a window for Revis and the rest.

Go down the field!