Here's my proposal to get a deal done:
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It's, in reality, a 4 year deal at $23 million per year. That makes Davante the highest paid WR in the league by most standards.
It's, on paper, a 6 year deal at $27.6 million per year. That makes Davante the highest-paid WR in the league in new money/new years terms.
The guaranteed money (signing bonus, first two years' salary) comes in a hair under 40%, fitting Packers contract practices.
The 3rd year is not guaranteed, but releasing him or trading him after the second year creates $33M in dead money versus a $27M cap hit, gives him a strong likelihood of getting the 3rd year he may be seeking as an essential guarantee, while a post-June 1st cut makes a move at that juncture break-even, essentially saying we would only let him walk before year 3 is we wanted to pay him not to play here.
After the 3rd year, we're looking at an out that would cause either a $22 M dead cap hit (pre-June 1) or a $$16.5M cap hit (post June 1st) versus a cap hit of $32M and so some savings are really available, if needed.
But the most obvious out is after year 4, where he can be released or traded to save $25.5 million (pre-June 1st), or designated post June 1 to save $31 million and push $5.5M in dead cap into the next year.
If the cap grows by 5% a year from 2022 (conservative by historical standards and the TV deal money kicking in), Adams never counts more than 14.5% of the cap in any given year, and only 13.5% of cap within the first 4 years.
If the cap grows by 7% a year from 2022 (close to league average), Adams never counts above 13.4% of the cap, 12.6% within the first 4 years.
If the cap grows by 10% a year (optimistic but realistic with the new tv deals), Adams stays below 12% of the cap throughout the deal.
I'm not in a place (in-season) where I want to think about working through all the tradeoffs that may need to be made to keep this guy, but certainly, Jenkins, Alexander, and Adams are affordable if other moves are made elsewhere.
Obvi, this is a very basic version of this type of contractual work. I didn't use any renegotiations or anything (I think the year 5 salary might be better served with a big option bonus or something, but whatevs). But it's the best I could do to meet our wants (4 years at the real highest-paid level) versus his (respect of the new money/new year level), the standard practice of guarantees, the desire for him to have 3 years here, etc.
I think this can work, maybe, possibly.