Estimating Saturday's contract

Jeff Saturday's new contract reportedly makes him "one of the highest paid centers in the league." How much is that? (as someone asked me earlier and got a bitchy responce, sorry). ESPN is also reporting that the deal is frontloaded, "to make the deal work". So aproximately what does the deal look like?

Until about an hour ago the highest paid center in the league was the Buc's Jeff Faine who signed a 6 year 37.5 million dollar contract (6.25mil per year). The phrase "one of the highest paid centers" implies that he isn't the highest paid so we can assume that he's getting less than that as a per year average. It's a 3 year deal so the upper bound on the contract would be 18.75million.

Some other big center deals

The Bears' Olin Kreutz signed a 3 year 17.5 million extension (5.75million per year) in 2006.

That year LeCharles Bentley signed a 6 year 36 million dollar contract with the Browns (6million per year).

2007's biggest center deal was Andre Gurode's 6 year 30 million dollar contract (5 million per).

As the highest paid center Saturday would be making between 5.5-6 million per year.

[Update] (tip to bratings) The Indy Star reports the deal with worth more than 13 million. That sets the minimum per year at 4.33million.

But with ESPN's report that the deal is front loaded (and assuming they aren't refering to the signing bonus like in the Hayden deal), how much cap room is Saturday taking up. According to Coltscap Indy has around 10 million in cap room. They'll have to leave 3-4 million for draft picks and low level FAs, so the deal can't really have a hit of much more than 7 million without requiring the release of other players.

The deal is most likely worth between 13-18.75 million, with a 2009 cap hit of between 4.3 and 7 million.

My estimate: 18million total, 6.5 million 2009 cap hit