I knew i couldnt be the only one

We don't know what the difference was in guaranteed money; only UKRAIN could tell us. In any case, I am sure he was offering bonus money of more than $17K per season.

This actually rarely works and requires being cap savvy. While yes it let's them be cut it can also require you to cut them from how much you have to pay them without much bonus. It's a salary cap double edged sword that requires a great deal of foresight. How often do we end up with 90m in cap space?

How you figure? If the game no longer favors guaranteed money, then you can offer max contracts with minimal bonus and be safe if a player retires or you want to cut them. It’s a no risk signing.

Does anyone know if you can front load bonus money on contracts yet? I was going to try it this FA period, but I didn't have time to play with it.

Front load??

Basically I want a contract that looks like this:

Year 1: 5m contract / 15m bonus
Year 2: 15m contract / 100K bonus

I can't see any way you could do it.
In the contract window you can only change the years, the guaranteed money over those years and the salary for any years.

That's what I remembered, but I haven't tried to do fancy contracts for a while.

It still heavily favors guaranteed money. You have to give a lot more money in order for them to pick your less guaranteed contract than more which puts a lot of strain on your salary cap and may force you to choose to cut them or not be able to sign other free agents you need. It has pros and cons.