Originally posted by JTB1974:
I would give Brock a 10 year deal with an out after 6 years. That way you can keep restructuring his contract every season to keep the cap low. Look at what the Chiefs did with Mahomes,He's into like year 6 of his contract and I don't think his cap hit has ever been high because every year they keep restructuring it. You can't do that with a short-term contract. There is no wiggle room. It's why Dak's cap hit was like 50+ Million last season.
The Mahomes deal was a work around for COVID. The Chiefs promised Mahomes that once the league lifted COVID protocols related to the cap, they would redo his deal bring his contract inline with the top contracts. They did that. On September 18th, 2023, the Chiefs restructured Mahomes' contract, moving 43.3M from the final 4 years to pay out over 2023-26. It basically turned his contract into a 5-year top-market contract, setting up an extension in 2028. 264.75M/5 has a total contract AAV of 52.95M. The top-5 total contract AAVs are Allen (55M), Dak (53.8M), Lamar (52M), Goff (48.1M), and Tua (47.1M). His 4-year cashflow is 208.1M with escalators that caps out at 218M. That was passed by Dak last year (219M) and Allen this year (220M).
Dak's cap hit is a product of the Cowboys not taking care of him in 2019. Dak wanted to reset the market with a 35-38M AAV contract. Jerry didn't want to commit to Dak with that kind of money, so they tagged him for 31M. The CBA happened and Mahomes signed that 10-year extension. The next year, Watson got an extension. Dak trades some cash for a 2nd franchise tag, no tag, and no trade clause. Those concessions influenced the 2024 negotiations.
As for giving Brock a Mahomes-like 10-year extension, the QB market was stagnating around an extension AAV of 33-35M when the Chiefs gave Mahomes 45M. Right now, extension AAVs are around 53-55M, so an equivalent contract would be like 707M/10yr.