I mean, to radsoxfan’s point, it’s not at all uncommon for contracts to be written with low base salaries in year 1, both to limit the out of pocket for owners and lower the initial cap hit. Let’s not forget Brady restructured before the 2016 season, getting a $28 million signing bonus and lowering his base to $1 million for 2016 and 2017 and reducing his lost earnings for the Deflategate suspension to only $250k. I mean, yes, fuck Cleveland and Watson, but it’s hard to call a pretty normal contract structure an “obvious circumvention” of a potential NFL punishment.