According to the Associated Press, quarterback Chad Pennington’s two-year deal with the Dolphins is worth $11.5 million.

On the surface, this suggests that Pennington will be close, on average, to the $6 million base salary that he was due to earn in 2008 with the Jets.

But the devil is likely in the details.  We suspect that the first year of the deal is relatively light on salary, with the second-year including a fairly large roster bonus due in March, which will force the Fins to decide early on in free agency whether to keep (and pay) Pennington for 2009, or whether to allow him to hit the market.

Deals like that are, as a practical matter, “prove it” arrangements — one-year contracts with a team option for the second season that only will be exercised if the player does enough in the first year to earn the money in the second.

Or maybe the Fins in this case have no real intention to keep Pennington for two years, and have opted to dump a bunch of never-to-be-paid cash into the second year in an effort to help Pennington restore some dignity via the news of an eight-figure contract only days after being so unceremoniously cut by the team that drafted him eight years ago.