This topic is probably worthy of a Filmstudy Short--"What might be a reasonable price for a Skura extension this winter?"
4/40 is too high, because the contract value needs to take into account the fact he is set to make less than $4 million in 2020 with a 2nd round RFA tender. No team will give a 2nd for the right to pay market value for Skura as of this moment.
The primary consideration from Skura's perspective will be the guaranteed money. If he plays under his RFA tender in 2020, he'll be rolling the dice on a huge percentage of his lifetime earnings. That incents him to make a deal with some small discount built in to the on-the-run UFA center market.
Let's say an AAV of $10M is the going rate for a B-/C+ center. I think he'd jump on a deal that was 4/32 with 6-8 million guaranteed with a structure that all but guarantees $20M gets paid out in the first 2 years.
I'll try to look at it from Skura's point of view:
1. I believe in myself and the team is playing well
2. I think I can play well in year 4 and perhaps take another step forward
3. Yanda might retire and leave me with players of unknown quality to either side
4. I've been durable, but I might get hurt
5. This contract is my best chance to cash in on what I've been working on for the last 15 years
6. Brett Urban (like many others) is a cautionary tale of what can happen to a good player that gets hurt at the wrong time
7. On one hand, I could make $10M more over the course of the next 4 years by waiting a year to sign, but I might have to move to do so and there is a big downside risk in #6 that I can't insure (BTW, this would be a great business).
If I'm trying to explain what an actuary does, I often start with a question. If you are offered a proposition to get $1 for sure or roll 1 die and a 6 comes up you get $1,000, what would you do? Everyone rolls the die.
Now let's raise the stakes by a factor of 1,000,000. Would you rather have $1M guaranteed or roll the die for $1B? You'll get a big split along wealth (and confidence in future earnings) lines about how people will choose.
I don't know how confident Skura is about his future both during and after football, but this has all the earmarks of a situation with divisible benefit to an early extension.