Backed into a negotiating corner by the Arizona Cardinals, former Penn State wide receiver Bryant Johnson nonetheless landed with both feet in bounds Tuesday night.

ESPN.com has learned that Johnson, the 17th player chosen overall, has reached contract agreement with the Cardinals on a five-year deal worth in excess of $8 million in "base" value, and which could net him as much as $12 million, if escalators are triggered.

The agreement, negotiated by agent Joel Segal and Cardinals vice present Rod Graves, came two days after Arizona officials staged a curious and confusing end-around on Johnson, who had been chosen one spot higher than defensive end Calvin Pace, the second of the club's two picks in the first round.

Up until Sunday, the Cardinals were on similar negotiating paths with both of their first-round choices, offering each of them guaranteed money of about $4.4 million. In fact, the offers at that point were only about $25,000 apart in terms of 2003 cap values. But the Cards' emphasis then shifted to Pace, after team officials reportedly assessed that getting him into camp was more critical.

The Cardinals dramatically raised their offer to Pace, moving about $700,000 his way, and essentially taking money off the table from proposals made to Johnson earlier. And on Monday afternoon, Pace agreed to a five-year contract worth slightly more than $8 million and with $5.1 million in guarantees between the initial signing bonus and also an option bonus.

The deal with Pace, though, left Arizona with only about $975,000 remaining in rookie pool room, seemingly not enough to permit a market value deal for Johnson.

By comparison, the rookie pool value for Pace was $1.25 million.

That's why Segal and Graves had to dig deep into their respective bags of negotiating tricks to come up with some creative mechanisms that salvaged what could have become a nasty situation, and a possible grievance action by Johnson and his representatives.

The two sides eventually settled on an incentive bonus, an easily achievable benchmark that Johnson need only meet one time to earn additional funds, and a tactic used by the Cardinals in negotiations with first-round pick Leonard Davis in 2001. The combination of the various bonuses involved is slightly in excess of $5.3 million, in line with Johnson's "slot" in the first round. Compared to last year's No. 17 slot in the draft, the unusual contract represents a sizeable increase.

To his credit, Johnson was willing late Tuesday night to put the situation behind him, although he remains confounded by the Cardinals' negotiating tack.

"At this point, I can't be concerned about whatever football decisions they made over the weekend," Johnson said. "Even after it happened, I was confident we would somehow get a market value deal, and I trusted (Segal) would come up with a formula for doing that. So now, I just forget about the way this all came down and get ready to play football and to have a great rookie year."

Johnson, 22, had 110 catches for 2,008 yards and 10 touchdowns at Penn State, where he was a two-year starter and appeared in 46 games in four seasons. In addition, Johnson had 41 punt returns for a 12.9-yard average and one touchdown.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.