Dolphins Rework Howard's Contract
The Xavien Howard issue has been settled.
The Miami Dolphins have reworked the contract of the All-Pro cornerback, days after he requested a trade on Instagram.
“We’re excited. I’ve been up here multiple times saying we’ve been making progress," head coach Brian Flores said before practice Sunday. "You guys probably felt like I wasn’t giving you all the information, which I wasn’t, but we were working on it.
"We’re excited to have gotten this done. We’re just looking forward to continually improving with X and really his teammates on a day-to-day basis and we’ll just try to just build and get better offensively, defensively and in the kicking game.”
Howard's agent, David Canter, took to Twitter to comment on the contract restructure.
According to a league source, the Dolphins:
• Gave Howard up to $3.5 million in incentives for 2021, including $1 million for making the Pro Bowl or being named an All-Pro;
• Agreed to rescind the $93,000 in fines for Howard skipping the mandatory June minicamp;
• Moved per-game roster bonuses of $500,000 in 2022 to base salary and guaranteed it against injury;
• Converted a 2022 $100,000 workout bonus to base salary and guaranteed it against injury;
• Converted Howard's $12.975 injury guarantee for 2022 to a full guarantee on the first day of the league year;
• Fully guaranteed $6.775 million of Howard's 2022 salary.
The maximum value for Howard for 2021 is at $16.3 million. The Dolphins also agreed to revisit Howard's contract next spring.
Howard has four years left remaining on the five-year extension he signed in May 2019.
He led the NFL in interceptions in 2020 with 10 — the first NFL player to reach double digits since 2006 and was selected to the AP All-Pro first team and the Pro Bowl.
Flores said there never was real concern that the situation wouldn't get resolved.
“Look, he’s a very good player," Flores said. "We want him back. We wanted him here. We want him here and he’s here. We’re excited to have him. The level of concern, I can’t say that there was much level of concern. I think Chris, Brandon, X’s representation, there was always communication.
"Anytime there’s lines of communication that are open, there’s dialogue, there’s concessions, compromise, whatever you want to call it, on both sides ... on our side, there definitely were concessions. When you do that on a case-by-case basis with certain players, this instance we’re always going to do what we feel is best for the team. Yeah, we’re excited to have him.”
Howard has been limited in practice for most of training camp because of an ankle injury and Flores said that would remain the case for the time being.
News of the contract modification comes two days after Flores said the Dolphins did not want to trade Howard.
“Look, we’re excited to have X," Flores said. "He’s obviously a very good player, a good teammate. You could see that by the way his teammates support him. Look, I’m a one-day-at-a-time guy, so that’s how we’re going to approach things. In any negotiation, compromise is important. At the end of the day, we want all sides to be happy. We feel like that’s the case right now and that’s how we’ll move forward.”
