The public depends upon sports radio and TV programs, as well as written sports articles to accurately relate factual information about their NFL players, but way too often, the headline about a certain contract for a NFL player is deceptive as, for instance, the statement that a particular NFL player signed a contract of $80 million for six years, is only a partial truth, because often times, the bulk of the contract, that is over 50% of the contract, is not actually guaranteed, and that being the case, means the player in a sport that has as many career ending and debilitating injuries as the NFL, won't receive the actual pay of the contract, because most NFL contracts have clauses that reduce or eliminate payments due to players for injury or for being released by their parent team.
In fact, contracts in the NFL are typically straightforward, meaning, that if reporters would simply report the facts, rather than racing to report the largest possible compensation number, a far more accurate picture would emerge on the actual pay for these brave warriors. The typical structure of a NFL contract for a meaningful player would include a: signing bonus, a yearly salary broken out by year and payment amount stipulated for the length of the term with the team, incentive bonuses, roster bonus, and any other assorted odds and ends. The only money that would be guaranteed within that contract would be money that was specifically guaranteed in the contractual terms, which is typically only the signing bonus, and because that money is guaranteed, the NFL owner of said player, must deposit that full amount of the salary into escrow, pending payment to the player.
The deception of NFL contracts lies in the fact that reporters want to report the largest possible number to the public as if the player is guaranteed that number, when, in actual fact that is almost never the case. Further to the point, that contract salary number comes from the upper management of the subject team, so they too are complicit in this deception, to which, it is in their best interest to do so, because they have no real desire to point out to their employees how vulnerable their wages are to the vicissitudes of management and of the game. The bottom line is that no matter how large a particular contract is for, most contracts, allow the owner to simply walk away from their non-guaranteed obligations, by simply cutting the player from their squad, or by trading the player in a manner that allows the contract to become null and void.
The business of the NFL is for the mega-rich owners to make money on the player's labor, and until such time as the NFL players union is able to successfully hold the owner's feet to the fire, and thereby to get the owner's to have to commit to a higher percentage of absolute guaranteed player's salary, via a written, fix contract, than the players will continue to get the short end of the stick for a sport that on any given play can end their career and impact negatively forever the health of their life.