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While we have a moment on what we hope will be a quiet NFL weekend, let's review the financial particulars of two veteran players who moved within the division this week. As always, we try to use financial terms to better understand how the league and our teams in particular view the player. Linebacker Desmond Bishop's deal with the Minnesota Vikings is for one year and $750,000, according to ESPN Stats & Information resources. There is no signing bonus, but the Vikings guaranteed $50,000 of that that base salary. (There have been reports of incentives as well, but I was not able to confirm them.) Bishop took an 80 percent pay cut, which is not unusual for a player who didn't play the previous season. It also wasn't realistic to expect a significant market to build at this time of the NFL financial season, when most teams have spent the resources they intend to spend. The Vikings didn't make much of a commitment here, but that is more a reflection of timing than their assessment of Bishop. They envision him as a starter in 2013. Meanwhile, defensive lineman Israel Idonije's one-year contract with the Detroit Lions is worth a total of $905,000. More than half of it is guaranteed: $420,000 of his base salary and a $65,000 signing bonus. That tells us, if we didn't know before, that Idonije is making the team, should get plenty of playing time and had more than one team interested in him.
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