The NFL rumor mill has heated up regarding a trade that would see the Raiders and Jets coming to terms on a deal for wide receiver Davante Adams. While I am not sure that this rumor really has any legs at the moment, I’ve been getting a number of questions about whether or not the Jets can pull off such a trade so let’s look at the financials that would be involved.

Adams’ salary for the year is $17.5 million and any team that trades for him would need to have about $16.6 million in cap room to execute the trade. Currently 15 teams in the NFL have enough cap room to take on Adams’ contract; the Jets are not one of those teams.

The Jets have around $6 million in cap room for 2024 and would need to create $10.6 million to bring Adams on board this summer. The first step would be to restructure the contract of DT Quinnen Williams. Williams has a team high cap number of $20.4 million and a full restructure would reduce his charge by $10.62 million. This should give the Jets the room that they need to execute a trade at which point they would need to decide where to go next to be able to function for the year.

Once the regular season hits teams need to account for the roster moving to 53 players, all charges associated with reserve lists, and the teams Practice Squad. The PS will eat up around $4 million in cap charges, the move to 53 man will eat up at least $1.6 million, and a rough estimate for reserve list players would be $3 million. So that is around $9 million. You also need a cushion for other events in the regular season, so we can call that $3 to $4 million. That would leave the Jets with the need to create $12 to $13 million more in cap room.

Once the trade happens the team could restructure Adams’ contract. Assuming he is willing to add two void years to his contract they could open up $12.5 million with him. My guess would be that he would be willing to do that but his contract is unique to where he could be looking for an extension as well. If he was not willing to add the void years without an extension they would be able to free up $10.45 million post trade.

Next on the list would likely be LB Quinnen Williams. Williams has a $7.1 million cap charge this year. They could lower that by $4.1 million if they add another void year to Williams’ contract. That move along with the lower Adams restructure should bea the Jets an in season salary cap cushion of around $4 or $5 million.

The Jets do have a few other players they could look at but some of those are players likely looking for new deals (DJ Reed and Haason Reddick) so the list would be more limited to players that would open up a small amount, in the ballpark of $3 to $4 million.

If the Jets favor saving cap room/saving cash they would need to get the Raiders to pay off Adams’ salary for the year as a bonus prior to the trade. In such a scenario the Jets would only need to account for $1.72 million on the cap for Adams, but that would significantly up the trade compensation. A few years ago the Rams made an in-season trade with the Broncos for Von Miller with Denver paying Miller’s salary, The cost for that was a 2^nd and 3^rd round draft pick for a half of a season. Given that the Jets would get Adams for an entire year I think the cost would be much higher likely a 1^st round pick plus a 2^nd or a 3^rd.

Without the salary pickup the closest comparison I could come up with would be Julio Jones being traded from the Falcons to the Titans. Jones, who had a similar salary as Adams, was traded for a 2^nd and 4^th round pick to the Titans (who also received a 6^th rounder). Adams is coming off a better year than Jones was at the same time, but I think Jones’ legendary career status trumped his prior season’s stats which were also plagues by some injuries.

If I were the Jets I would also have to consider any side impact that a trade for Adams would have on the team. The Jets have a legit number 1 target in Garrett Wilson, who is going to be looking for a monster year with Aaron Rodgers as his QB to up his contract expectations. Adams has a great relationship with Rodgers and is going to be a target hog in any offense. Is it worth $17M or so in salary to move Wilson to a number 2 role? I am not sure it is.

If the Jets were really going to make this move the time to have made it was back in March before they spent $10 million on Mike Williams to be the number 2 in the offense once healthy. Adding Adams to the offense likely makes Williams irrelevant leaving the Jets with two expensive paperweights at receiver (Allan Lazard being the other).

I don’t think it makes a ton of sense to do this trade now. Let the season begin to play out and see how your offense looks with Wilson at the number 1 and Williams, if healthy, as the 2. If things don’t look great begin exploring trades. It would likely cost a lot to pry Adams away from the Raiders in August (one would think they would like to see how their offense plays with Adams in a key role) and that price, along with the salary cap space needed, is going to lower as the year goes on assuming the Raiders are not competitive.    The Jets season should be focused on how far they can get in the playoffs. If we view this as needing Davante Adams just to make the playoffs then something is fundamentally wrong with the team. See where things go in September and evaluate where your real holes are once the team is playing meaningful games, Then use whatever cap room or draft capital to do what you need to do to improve your chance of making the Super Bowl. This just seems like rushing into a big headline stealing trade for little reason

49ers star wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk has requested a trade after contract negotiations on an extension have gone nowhere since May according to NFL Networks Mike Garafolo.

Source: #49ers All-Pro WR Brandon Aiyuk has officially requested a trade after an offseason of unsuccessful attempts to reach an extension.

Despite a recent meeting, the Niners haven’t been willing to engage in negotiations since May so Aiyuk has respectfully asked out. pic.twitter.com/EWxYMvsHch

— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) July 16, 2024

Contract disputes are common in the NFL as are trade requests but often times we jump to conclusions when we hear reports like this that a relationship is beyond repair when in reality things often sort themselves out a few weeks later.

The way the system is designed gives the players very little leverage in situations like this one which is a big reason why these things work themselves out. If Aiyuk is really dug in on looking to be traded he would need to hold out from training camp to prove he is serious about not wanting to play with the 49ers this season.

The CBA mandates massive fines for players on their fifth year option who make that decision to hold out. The fines are $40,000 per day and in the ballpark of $785,000 for every preseason game that is missed. If a holdout continues into the regular season the player will give up his salary ($785K) for every game missed and if he fails to report at all would have his contract toll to 2025 where he would remain under contract to the team. The financial penalties really put the ball in the 49ers court here.

Option 2 is the “hold in”. This is where the player shows up to training camp but will complain about a sore hamstring, ankle, etc…any kind of minor injury that can keep him off the practice field. This is a technique that is usually used when two sides are closer to an extension and the player doesn’t want to risk a camp injury destroying his salary. Sometimes these can drag on for awhile but at some point the team is going to force a player to play.is

It is hard to say what offers have really been traded between the two sides. IF the last offer was made in May it was probably made with the Amon-Ra St. Brown and AJ Brown contracts considered to the top two contracts in the market, with both being valued around $28 million a year. Since then Jaylen Waddle slightly moved the market upward and then Justin Jefferson signed a legit market outlier type of contract.

If the 49ers were willing to make Aiyuk the highest paid receiver you would probably have been looking at a contract worth about $28.25 million a year with the first four years of the contract guaranteed. It is hard to say what that number would be now but my guess would be that Aiyuk would be looking for a contract that is a legit $30 million per year.

Both of those numbers may be questionable for San Francisco and they could be lower when you look at their roster structure. The 49ers currently rank 4^th in the NFL in spending and they rank 5^th in spending for 2025. These numbers are in spite of having a QB who earns pennies (his salary is so low it actually doesn’t even count in the offseason salary cap in 2024) and will be in line for a massive raise in 2025 when he is extension eligible.  Their roster is not really designed for multiple cuts in 2025 to free up significant cash and there is potential for the owners around the NFL dealing with the fallout of a massive loss of money from a lawsuit over Sunday Ticket. These scenarios don’t really lend themselves to making an offer for someone to earn top of the market money.

There is also the question of how much SF wants to invest in their passing game. The 49ers were dead last in passing attempts last season and many consider the offense they run to be capable of using many interchangeable parts while still being successful. Having two receivers earning in the top 11 at the position along with the 3^rd highest paid tight end seems like it could be overkill for what they run.

From a timing perspective it would be odd for San Francisco to make a trade unless Aiyuk really did hold out and dig in on the holdout. Trades of players like this happen in the earliest stages of free agency or at the latest during the first day of the draft. It gives a team time to replace the player and also have a draft pick to use in the current season. A contending team trading a top line player at this point in the offseason would be odd. San Francisco has the ability to franchise Aiyuk next season and could just trade him next year that way as well when the timing makes more sense, At the worst the 49ers should not entertain a trade until a few weeks into the year if things just went horrifically bad on the season and they fell out of contention right away.

I think Aiyuk right now has unfortunately fallen into a weird place in a positional market that doesn’t make the most sense in the world. He and Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb both seem to be stuck in limbo over how much should a team invest in the position. Both of these teams are at a bit of a crossroads with their rosters, Dallas with the uncertainty at QB and the 49ers with an already overwhelmed payroll, and both have some old school front offices that have seen these types of scenarios play out. Dallas was in the middle of one of these years ago with Dez Bryant when the Cowboys and Denver Broncos both got star wideouts to accept that the top contracts at the time were not attainable.

In any event it’s a tough spot for Aiyuk and while requesting a trade may sound the panic alarm around the 49ers fanbase it is probably better to just watch the situation play out and see if any drastic happens when the 49ers report to camp or if it winds up like most of the situations in the past where the player has limited options and winds up back in camp as if nothing was wrong.

The numbers are in for Trevor Lawrence’s $275 million contract extension with the Jaguars thanks to Pro Football Talk, which gives us a far better idea as to how this deal stacks up against the rest of the market.

The Cash Flows

The first thing we should be looking at with any of these extensions are the way that the new money cash flows break down. This can give you a strong idea as to whether or not a contract like this will move the market or is just keeping up with the market. Here is how the cash stacks up against the other top five QB contracts in the NFL (Year 0 is new money paid over the existing contract years of the prior contracts- 2024 and 2025 in Lawrence’s case).

The first thing that stands out here, at least to me, is that they seemed to worked backwards off of Burrow’s $275 million rather than forward leading into the $275 million. Lawrence cash flows in 24 and 25 are basically a minor step up from Justin Herbert and through the first new year a massive step back from Herbert. He will catch up to Herbert in year two. This is similar to the Jared Goff structure.

By year three they more or less are splitting the difference between Burrow and Herbert or mimicking the increase Goff had over Herbert. In year 4 we finally pull closer to Burrow and then match in year five.

When I wrote about Lawrence a few weeks back I mentioned one of my concerns with him was the lack of playoff/regular season success when trying to peg him to Burrow.  It was a reason why I felt playing out this year may have had a high reward factor for him. The contract here clearly mimics Herbert which was the standard for a solid young QB whose teams had not really delivered on the field. The non guaranteed backend seasons are where he gets into Burrow territory.

That’s not to say there is anything wrong with the contract but I don’t think it sets a standard that will be meaningful for other QBs. The market basically remains unchanged in that respect especially since Lawrence’s draft status will make him a hard comparison for other young players like Tua.

The Guarantees

$200 million of the contract is guaranteed for injury with $142 million fully guaranteed at signing. This number also splits the difference between Burrow and Herbert.

Both Herbert and Lawrence ended up with lower guarantees here than the others because they had more existing salaries. This is one of the negatives for players with larger existing P5s over multiple years focusing on the total guarantee number rather than the amount of new money that is being guaranteed.

The guarantee structure is similar to the market in that the injury guarantee is likely to be earned as a full guarantee due to the early vesting dates. Here is how much salary would be earned if Lawrence was cut at any point in the contract.

Essentially 62% of the contract is guaranteed to be earned as no other out in the contract would really make any sense for the Jaguars unless Lawrence somehow forgot how to throw a football.

The Salary Cap Structure

The Jaguars almost followed the Eagles contract model by placing gigantic option bonuses in almost every year of the contract. This allows the team to maintain low salary cap charges through 2027 and a reasonable charge in 2028 before the numbers explode in 2029 and 2030. If The Jaguars determine the contract was a mistake they would likely decline one of the later options to make it a little less painful on the cap to release him in 2029 or 2030. I would not be surprised if there were void years running way later into the contract (i.e 2035) as the “option years” to allow them to do just that and not trigger acceleration from any standard void years which are likely part of the contract.

Lawrence has a no trade clause which has also become more standard for QBs, but I always consider those to be pretty meaningless since most players are not going to want to remain in a bad situation. Those options would give the team a little salary cap wiggle room if it came to that and my assumption would be that 2028 would be the year a trade could happen if things went that sideways.

If things are going well the cap structure would likely indicate 2029 as a big year for a possible extension. The salary cap charge should be close to $80 million at that point and even with a rising cap would be a big number. Restructuring that year is always possible but would give the player huge leverage in a contract year. A $75 million cap figure in 2030 would put his 2031 tag figure at $89.66 million to go along with $21 million in void year charges.

Overall Thoughts

This is a solid contract but not something that I would consider a market mover in any way. The numbers showed that Lawrence probably wanted the deal done more than the Jaguars did right now as there would have been no harm in waiting to see if someone the Dolphins or Packers did something crazy with their young QBs in the next two months or if the Cowboys did something with Dak Prescott. It mainly just solidifies a range for the very good young player with upside whose team hasn’t exactly had success while at the same time the player is by no means a failure.

Lawrence, like Herbert, won’t get a pass anymore if his team falters. Rightly or wrongly the money changes the expectations and this will go the same way as Herbert where we saw Herbert detractors begin to show in 2023 with people asking about the cost of a trade. It makes 2024 a big year for Lawrence and it’s a big win for the Jaguars if he hits that high since it would have spiked his value by $5M a year and millions more in cash payments.

On a leaguewide basis I do think we are reaching a fundamental breaking point in the short term approach teams are taking to roster construction. With these types of guarantee structures the teams are basically opting into 60-70% of a contract at signing. Unless you have a Mahomes that’s a huge risk. The reward on contracts of this magnitude should come by getting multiple backend years where the cost of the contract begins to lag the market.  The minimum length needs to be six years and you have to structure the contracts in a manner to not just hand over the leverage on an extension.

These structures where teams are petrified of taking on any large cap hits on the front end of the contract lead to contracts that read five years in length but you could easily argue are only 3 or 4 years in length due to those massive salary cap figures in the final two contract years.  Those numbers will either be harder to manage or lead to an extension at whatever the current rate will be so the team can drop the cap charges again. That is not going to be a winning formula for 90% or so of the NFL.

Competing with the ultra cheap rookie QB is difficult and it is one of the reasons why the top 10 paid QBs don’t have anything more than an average rate of making the playoffs (its about 42% of the top paid who make it). The structures we are seeing across the NFL where teams are trying their best to maintain an extended “rookie-ish” cap window makes these have lower odds of success down the line without really capturing the real rookie benefits which are related to both cash and cap breakdowns.

It is a different topic entirely but I think much of this boils down to teams simply not filling potential expensive positions in the draft outside of QB. Just looking at the Jaguars a bit here. Is there a point to draft a RB the same year you draft a QB? Should you draft a linebacker the same year you sign a good $15M per year linebacker? Should you draft a 2^nd round tight end the same year you extend a $14M per year tight end?  These are the kind of decisions that require you to do these things with the QB contract because now you feel the need to sign Arik Armstead, Gabe Davis, etc…when maybe you could have filled those slots with younger and cheaper players. The decision seems to boil down to  “what can we do with the QB numbers so we can fill these voids we have this year and next” rather than “what’s the best structure for a QB contract so we can maximize our roster every year”.

Go and look at the way that the Chiefs have handled Mahomes’ contract. It has been a long term approach. They have determined when they have had to strike on the cap numbers in the contract and how to minimize the long term constraints that might come with it.  In the first five years of Mahomes’ contract there have been two seasons where he played for about the minimum with the rest being prorated. Those were the first two years of the contract, the first of which only carried a $10 million bonus so basically it left his rookie deal untouched for one year.

The first three years of Lawrences contract are designed to be around minimum salaries. The first five years of his contract contain $177.5 million in bonuses, 87.9 % of the entire contract value in that time. Mahomes, even after receiving raises from the team, has had $91.3 million paid as bonuses in the first five years. That is 66% of the salary paid over that time. Mahomes is obviously the best QB in the NFL but I think it is also safe to say that the Chiefs have built one of the better rosters in the NFL around him and partially that is due to taking a more measured approach to his contract and team building around that contract. They run deep into the playoffs every year. There is something to learn from that but I think team’s are missing that aspect of it entirely and the Jaguars are another team to fall victim to it with their QB contract.

The Saints restructured the contract of TE Taysom Hill, converting $8.79 million of salary into a signing bonus and creating $6.59 million in the process. Hill’s 2025 salary cap number will increase by $2.19 million to $17.986 million. There is now $9.7 million in void year salary cap charges that are set to hit the salary cap in 2026 if Hill’s contract voids.

This marks the third year in a row that the Saints have restructured Hill’s contract for cap relief. The team converted $9 million in 2022, $8.8 million in 2023, and now $8.79 million in 2024. If released next year the Saints would face a dead money charge of $17.7 million due to all of the restructures.

The Saints should now have a comfortable $12 million in cap space for 2024.

The Seahawks restructured the contract of defensive lineman Dre’Mont Jones converting $9.875 million of Jones’ 2024 salary into a signing bonus to create $7.4 million in cap room for the season, lowering his salary cap charge to $10.77 million. Jones’ 2025 salary cap number increased by $2.468 million to $25.645 million and two void years were added to the contract. The two void years currently hold $4.9 million in salary cap charges.

The move was necessitated by the Seahawks current salary cap position which saw the team with a league low amount of cap room, about $1.1 million, prior to the restructure. This should give Seattle the breathing room to now function the rest of the summer and into the regular season.

The Vikings and WR Justin Jefferson agreed on a historic four year, $140 million contract today that really creates on the rare true market moving contracts, something we have not really seen at the receiver position since the days of Larry Fitzgerald in his prime. Pro Football Talk has the breakdown of the contract so we can evaluate just how strong this contract really is.

The wide receiver market has been one of the more difficult markets to really explain due to the contracts signed by Tyreek Hill and Davante Adams in 2022 that had paper APY’s of $30 million and $28 million per year, respectively. However, upon closer look at the contract breakdowns the legitimate values on those deals were more in the range of $25 and $22.5 million per year. They set a weird precedent where many receivers in the NFL were receiving ballon salaries on the backend of their contracts to artificially inflate the values of the contracts  which makes it harder to understand where the market truly is. Jefferson’s contact does not use those same mechanisms to inflate the annual value of the contract.

I would consider the WR market, prior to this deal, to be around $28.5 million per year.  That would include Amon-Ra St Brown at a true value of $28 million, Jaylen Waddle at $28.25 million, and AJ Brown at $28.4 million. To get from $28.4 to 35 million a year would indicate a 23.2% market increase which is absolutely gigantic. You simply do not see moves like that today because it is rare for a player to have that kind of leverage on a team nor for a player to have a skill level that has consistently been better than anyone else at the position.

The cash flows on this one obliterate any of the current market deals.

The guarantees tell a similar story where Jefferson has $110M guaranteed for injury, $88.7M of which is fully guaranteed at signing. The other players at the position are around $80M injury and far less fully guaranteed.

This brings us back to a point that was made, perhaps mistakenly, by Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah where he indicated that Jefferson did deserve to be compensated as one of the highest paid players in the NFL which I said at the time meant the Vikings had to use Nick Bosa as the comp and that is exactly what they did. Here is the comparison of cash flows between Bosa and Jefferson.

There is a little give and take on both sides here but it seems pretty clear that this is the contract that the Vikings were having to work with rather than anything in the receiver market. The guarantees are also similar as Bosa received $122.5M in injury protection and $88M fully guaranteed at signing.

So this is truly a contract that exceeds the market by far more than people realize and values Jefferson in line with a totally different group of players.

Should the Vikings have done this contract sooner?  I would think so, but it depends on how focused Jefferson’s side was on matching or exceeding Bosa from the start. My opinion of Jefferson all of last year was that he would be the first receiver to get a legit $30 million a year contract which would have been about $5-6 million a year more than the position.  By waiting the Vikings allowed the receiver market to move up near $30 million which was always going to make it easier for Jefferson to hit the Bosa range. So the number being this far above the real market does not surprise me but it would be interesting to see where it would have been prior to Devonta Smith really changing the 1A type receiver market or Penei Sewell driving up the offensive player values.  

I know people are seeing this as a launching point for Ja’Marr Chase, CeeDee Lamb, etc… and while it may happen I don’t really see that. I don’t think people are used to seeing contracts like this where the market is totally shaken up by the contract. Once the rookie wage scale came into play in 2011 it just made it incredibly difficult for players to really set market tops. Basically, it has been Aaron Donald and Nick Bosa and that’s about it in the modern era.

Maybe I am wrong and teams do not have the stomach for arguing about how much better another player is or how much his contract is an outlier, but Larry Fitzgerald and Calvin Johnson were basically untouchable a generation ago. Aaron Donald was untouchable. Darrelle Revis and Nnamdi Asomugha were untouchable years ago. Jefferson should fit that same mold.

Jefferson’s numbers since he came into the league really blow away the rest of the league. In his four years in the NFL he has averaged 98.3 yards per game. Tyreek Hill is the only other player over 90 yards (92.7) over that timeframe. Chase is at 82.6. Lamb at 78. In the last three years it has been Jefferson at 10.23 yards and Hill at 95 with Cooper Kupp third at 92. Lamb is at 84 in that time. If you are one of the teams with a great young wide receiver and you go above this deal you are making a mistake, IMO.

Where this should impact the market is pulling up some of the others. At some point the cap grows enough to where a contract becomes obsolete and will be overtaken. That is probably two to three years from now for this one. This contract being a legit $35 million a year should now get rid of the nonsense of throwing fake money years on the backend of a young players contract to hit an APY (though there is probably a good chance a few veterans may do that) and legitimize a market at $30-$33 million a year for these other players. It should also pull up the guarantees. To me this is where Dallas and Cincy lose because its not working off $28.5 million a year and how much funny money to throw in for year 4 or 5 but working on a legit $120M deal for four years.

Overall, I think that we are going to see much more discussion in the next two to three years about the value of a top wide receiver. While that is a discussion for another time receiver is now established as far and away the 2^nd most important position on offense. This kind of a gap between offensive tackle and receiver is pretty big and we have to see how these deals pay off.

Ultimately this is a great deal for Jefferson and I think for the few high end players around the NFL that they can find circumstances to hold out for value that represents being so much better than others. Maybe one of these days QBs will follow suit to really shake up the NFL, but this should at least give a few more players hope that they can make a move at their respective positions even if they don’t hold the most leverage in the world while on a rookie deal.