Just In Time
Cowboys Beat Deadline; Sign Hamlin To 6-Year Deal
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IRVING, Texas - In the final hours before a deadline that would've prevented him from signing a long-term deal this season, safety Ken Hamlin has signed to a six-year contract worth $39 million.
The Cowboys had until 3 p.m. (CDT) on Tuesday to sign Hamlin to a multi-year contract, or else the safety would have played the 2008 season on the one-year, $4.396 million franchise tender the team placed on him back in late February. The Cowboys turned the deal into the league with less than an hour to spare.
The new deal includes $15 million in guaranteed money, including a $9 million signing bonus, and ranks right along with some of the other high-priced contracts that were doled out to safeties this off-season, which inflated the position's market value.
Hamlin is currently in Los Angeles, but his agent Kennard McGuire arrived in Dallas on Monday to finalize the contract talks with Stephen Jones, the Cowboys' director of player personnel.
The negotiations for Hamlin's deal were certainly altered when Oakland signed former Giants safety Gibril Wilson to a six-year, $39 million deal and the Jets signed Kerry Rhodes to a five-year, $33.5 million contract.
Neither Rhodes nor Wilson have made a Pro Bowl, while Hamlin made his first appearance in February after he recorded 102 tackles and five interceptions in his first season with the Cowboys.
Hamlin, a second-round pick of the Seahawks in 2003, played four years in Seattle before signing the one-year deal with the Cowboys last season as an unrestricted free agent.
The Cowboys placed the franchise tag on Hamlin back in late February. But since the fifth-year safety never signed the tender, he did not participate in any of the team's off-season activities, including four weeks of OTA (organized team activity) practices or the three-day mini-camp in June. And since Hamlin was not technically under contract, he was not subject to a fine for missing the mandatory mini-camp.
Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips called Hamlin the quarterback of the defense last year, and said he expects Hamlin to return to the starting lineup as the free safety.
Since just before the start of free agency, the Cowboys have reached long-term contracts with several Pro Bowl players, including Flozell Adams, Marion Barber, Terence Newman and Terrell Owens.