Breakdown: Is Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott 'biggest contract ever' actually a 4-year, $50 mil deal?

FRISCO - Players like contracts with lots of commas in them. Teams like contracts with lots of "protections'' in them. In the case of the new deal with Dallas Cowboys star running back Ezekiel Elliott, it appears both parties can be satisfied.

"Zeke has been arguably our best player,'' team owner Jerry Jones told CNBC after news of Elliott's new contract broke. "He's an incremental part to our success, and we're glad to have him on the team.''

The deal is billed as a six-year, $90 million ($50 million guaranteed) contract. It tacks on two years, so the on-paper (and in-the-headline) total is eight years and $103 million.

That is a win for Zeke because it's the richest running back contract in NFL history. It is a win for Dallas because the APY is about $12.8 million, below Elliott's target of $14 mil APY, which is what Todd Gurley makes for the Rams.

But "the devil (or the angel) is in the details'' here. I said going in there woul be substantial "escape clauses'' built into this contract -- or "protections,'' as NFL team execs like to term them. So ... the breakdown (via ESPN)

*Total: eight years, $102.9 million

*Signing bonus - $7.5 million (guaranteed money)

*2019 base salary - $752,137 (guaranteed money)

*2020 base salary - $6.8 million (with a $13 million option bonus, all guaranteed)

*2021 base salary - $9.6 million

*2022 base salary - $12.4 million

*2023 base salary - $10.9 million

*2024 base salary - $10 million

2025 base salary - $15.4 million

*2026 base salary - $16.6 million

Notice the "real'' guarantees here total $28 million. The base salaries in 2021 and 2022 become fully guaranteed if Elliott is on the roster at the start of those seasons' business years (in March) in 2020 and 2021.

Those represent your "protections.'' Dallas' true commitment here is to four seasons, once you consider the likely dead money should Dallas walk away too early. So in a sense, this is as a practical matter a four-year, $50-million deal -- just over $12.5 million annually.

$Is that too much? Too little? First understand that Dallas' cap management means this deal does not block the next one (for instance, with QB Dak Prescott.) And ultimately? If the Cowboys contend for a Super Bowl, it'll be a moot point. Jones thinks it already is.

"Anybody, when talking about that kind of money, we're all overpaid, if you really wanted to look at it that way," Jones said. "For what he has done, how he's worked, utilized his skills, then he's in the market place of where we are in pro sports and pro football."