Dolphins make good on their word, restructure cornerback Xavien Howard’s contract
The Dolphins fulfilled their promise to three-time Pro Bowl cornerback Xavien Howard, as he and the team on Friday agreed to a new five-year contract with $50.69 million in new money, according to Howard’s agent David Canter.
The new deal replaces the final three years of his previous five-year contract, which was to have paid him $39.3 million through 2024.
Howard had three years remaining on his initial contract and was due to be paid base salaries of $12.9 million in 2022, $11.4 million in 2023 and $11.6 million in 2024. The salaries in 2023 and 2024 were not guaranteed under Howard’s previous deal.
Howard now has a five-year, $90 million deal with $5 million in incentives that runs through 2026.
The updated deal gives him a new money average of $25.3 million for the final two years of the deal. That is the highest average salary for a cornerback in NFL history, per Canter. Howard will be paid $55 million over the next three seasons, according to NFL Network.
Howard’s new money average tops Los Angeles Rams’ Pro Bowl corner Jalen Ramsey’s contract, which has been paying him $20 million per season, the most of any cornerback.
Canter confirmed Howard and the Dolphins had an agreement Friday night on his Twitter account and said Howard will become the first cornerback in NFL history to have five years of his playing career guaranteed although the next five years are not fully guaranteed.
Howard now becomes the first NFL player to have his contract completely restructured with three years remaining on his initial contract and he’s set to make the most money over the next three years of any cornerback.
The Dolphins and Canter made alterations to Howard’s contract last August, which resulted in Howard pocketing more money than he was originally due to make last season, mostly from incentives, and guaranteeing more of his salary in 2023.
At the NFL Scouting Combine in February, Dolphins general manager Chris Grier acknowledged the team had told Canter last summer that Howard’s contract would be revisited again this offseason.
“We’ve had conversations with Xavien and his agent,” Grier said Monday at the league owners meetings in Palm Beach. “We had them a couple weeks ago in person. We’ll keep those conversations to ourselves, not to the press. Hopefully we’ll get to a resolution sooner than later.”
In a statement Saturday, Canter thanked the Dolphins for “unbelievable patience with this over the last 15 months.”
“This was a topic we discussed thousands of times over hundreds of hours,” Canter said.
Howard’s 27 interceptions since he entered the league as a second-round pick in 2016 are the most of any cornerback in that span and he led the league in interceptions in 2018 (seven) and 2020 (10). He also led the league in pass deflections in 2020 with 20.
This past season, Howard had five interceptions, including one he returned for a touchdown, as well as 50 tackles (31 solo), two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and one sack.
Over the past three weeks, the Dolphins have added $316.9 million in new contracts for Howard, Tyreek Hill (4-year, $120 million), Terron Armstead (5-year, $87.5 million), Cedrick Wilson (3-year, $22.5 million), Connor Williams (2-year, $14 million), Chase Edmonds (2-year, $12.6 million), Teddy Bridgewater (1-year, $6.5 million) and Raheem Mostert (1-year, $3.125 million).
However, not all of this money is guaranteed.
The Dolphins restructure of Howard’s deal is the team’s latest effort to keep intact a defense that spearheaded its 8-1 finish last season. The team re-signed defensive Ogbah to a four-year, $65 million deal, and retained linebackers Duke Riley, Elandon Roberts, Sam Eguavoen and Brennan Scarlett. The Dolphins also placed a second-round tender on cornerback Nik Needham and restructured cornerback Byron Jones’ contract to free 2022 cap space.
This story was originally published April 1, 2022 at 8:26 PM.
