rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
The 5th year discussion is largely semantics. They don't ignore the year, because the team wants the additional season for team control and cap manipulation.Its hard to remember stories form awhile ago but if I remember right they did a conversion to lower the cap hits, which is why he is still under contract for 6 more seasons after signing a 6 year extension and was another reason they wanted to get the Lamar extension done last year so that they could do the same thing to his 5th year option. I guess they could have baked void years into the 5th year option but given the current circumstances the organization probably dubbed that a tad too high risk.
I also think Allen's baseline 5th year was larger than Lamar's due to not only draft stock but the 2nd pro bowl but again that part is purely from memory.
Either way they just moved the money around for Allen but did not tear up that 5th year as we can both see he has 6 years under contract currently after signing a 6 year extension
Similarly, no agent (or even somebody without an agent) would sign an extension that would pay them less in that year than what they were already going to make. So if Lamar was due $23M under the 5th year option, he's not going to sign a contract extension that pays him $15M in that same season. Even if the extension is for more $, higher AAV, etc.
His 5th year option was going to pay him $23M. He got nearly $47M instead.
And yeah, he won't make anything close to that in a season for awhile. "Only" getting $28M this year. $30M next year. But that's pretty standard for all contracts and players. They want more $ now, less $ later. Because if they're below market value later, and performing well, it won't be hard to get a raise.
And I'm not convinced Lamar understands this.