Butler resident Justin Strobel is a winger on the Armstrong Arrows U-18 hockey team. The Arrows are headed to the national tournament in California next month.

NEW YORK — Guaranteed payments for unrestricted NFL free-agent contracts this month make up just over half of the total money to be paid, down a bit from 2018, when Kirk Cousins signed a fully guaranteed $84-million deal.

For the first 148 deals reached in March, the players’ union says $1.116 billion is guaranteed. That’s 50.15 percent of the nearly $2.227 billion in total values. Take out Cousins’ three-year deal, the 2018 total drops from 52.56 percent to 48 percent.

Teams also have spent far more so far in free agency this year. There were 120 contracts worth $1.836 billion at this point in 2018. Total guarantees in 2018 were $965,479,118.

The average amount per contract in this free agency period has been $15.04 million, of which the guaranteed dollars reached $7.54 million; the larger monetary agreements, such as quarterback Nick Foles’ deal with Jacksonville for $88 million over four years, $50.125 million guaranteed, skew the average somewhat.

Eighteen veterans signed contract extensions that totaled $226.725 million, of which 41 percent ($93.17 million) was guaranteed.

Contracts in Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NHL are fully guaranteed for the length of the deal.

“Obviously we are trying to figure how to improve that to 100 percent,” says Giants safety Michael Thomas, a member of the NFLPA’s executive committee. “We know it won’t happen overnight, but with best practices from the players, the agents and the agents of the union working together, we can get closer to the 100 percent.”

The current 10-year labor agreement expires in March 2021. All player contracts are negotiated individually and the CBA does not specifically address them, so other mechanisms are needed to boost the guarantees.

The fact the salary cap has risen substantially each year of this CBA since 2014 has helped the players get higher pay overall. There also are regulations requiring the 32 teams to spend at least a certain amount of their cap space each season.

And, of course, there is (or should be) the competitive desire of each club.

When Cousins received that megadeal from Minnesota last year, the NFL lagged far behind in guarantees. It still does.

“No other league has that mandate,” 12-year veteran linebacker Lorenzo Alexander of Buffalo said.