Ticats Brandon Banks takes pay cut with reworked deal

Hamilton Tiger-Cats return man Brandon Banks will arrive at Hamilton Tiger-Cats training camp with a new haircut.

Per sources, the diminutive Banks has agreed to a re-worked contract that will see him take a $50,000 pay cut in the final year of his deal. It includes a $77,000 base salary, a $20,000 signing bonus as well as an $18,000 housing allowance for $115,000 in “guaranteed” money. It also includes $15,500 in new performance incentives.

Under his original contract, Banks was due $122,000 in base salary in 2017, a $25,000 “report-and-pass” due at the start of training camp as well as $18,000 in housing for a total of $165,000 in “guaranteed” money. The deal also included incentives.

Banks made $140,000 in guaranteed money last season, a deal that was also reworked to include a hefty signing bonus in order help Banks resolve family support issues that were preventing him from crossing the border. Banks missed more than a week of training camp and was then suspended for two games in October for violating the league’s substance abuse policy.

Banks has been a divisional all-star the last three seasons and East’s Most Outstanding Special Teams Player the last two years.