Have you been thinking all day about the possibility of the Pittsburgh Steelers trading for Las Vegas Raiders WR Davante Adams? Well, I did, and more because of the financial aspect of it, as the Raiders were reportedly expecting some nice compensation for him as part of a trade.

Any team, including the Steelers, will only consider a trade for Adams as a likely one-year rental unless something can be worked out with his contract before a deal is finalized. That’s why I wanted to see how the Steelers could possibly negotiate a contract with Adams that would make some hefty trade compensation worthwhile.

As I said in a post Tuesday afternoon, Adams has inflated salaries in 2025 and 2026 to $35.64 million and $36.64 million, respectively, according to Over the Cap. Additionally, Adams can earn roster and training bonuses totaling $610,000 each in those final two years. That’s all on top of the $13.526 million he can make for the remaining 14 weeks of the 2024 season. As Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio also reported a few years ago, Adams’ deal also calls for him to make $250,000 annually to play the Pro Bowl, something he hasn’t done since 2022.

When Adams signed his current contract in March 2022, it was pretty much clear at the time that he would likely not see out the final two years of his deal, 2025 and 2026. The totals for those last two years were essentially nonsense. so Adams’ new money average at that time would be $28 million. Florio wrote about that while detailing Adams’ deal.

Knowing that whichever team wants to trade something significant for Adams will likely want to have him rework his deal, the big unknown is whether the wide receiver will at least want to keep his new $28 million money average intact, without tampering with the other business. the remaining money he must pay in 2024. That would be a reasonable demand from Adams if we’re being honest.

In order for Adams to keep an average of $28 million in new money after 2024 and without touching the remaining money he’ll make in 2024, he would need to have a total of $56 million for 2025 and 2026, at least on paper, for 2025 and 2026. and that assumes he doesn’t exceed the length of his current contract, which would make sense for a player about to turn 32.

Any team interested in trading for Adams at this point would likely have no problem with such an average demand for new money of $28 million, and that includes the Steelers.

The only other issue would be the overall cash flow for Adams in the first new year of 2025. Would he really demand $28 million? I think he would be flexible about that. Let’s say $22.5 million would be a 2025 total he would accept. Keep in mind that Adams has earned, or at least will earn, a total of $67.64 million since signing his current contract in 2022. That’s an average of $22,546,666.67 per year. Asking him to receive up to $22.5 million in 2025 seems like a reasonable request.

As for the remaining $33.5 million to make up the $56 million difference, that could be his total revenue in 2026, assuming he produces enough to earn it.

Now, instead of $22.5 million, and $33.5 million as Adams’ respective base salaries in 2025 and 2026, a small portion of each in those respective years could be designated as a roster bonus for March if Adams were to demand it.

When it comes to the remaining $13.526 million that Adams will make through the remainder of 2024, and assuming he was traded by the end of this week, an acquiring team, and that includes the Steelers, could realistically pay anything but $1, 21 million of them can be converted. into a signing bonus and then divide that amount over three years, 2024-2026.

Below is what the layout of Adams’ reworked deal would look like as I described it above, and it’s complete with salary cap space.

Remember, the example above is intended to not touch the length of Adams’ current contract and also to keep his new money average at $28 million while leaving his 2024 money total untouched. However, there are other ways to skin the proverbial cat, especially if two more years are added, with those two essentially being fluff years, just like the deal he is currently working on when it was signed.

Frankly, adding two years to Adams’ current contract as part of the rework might be the best course of action for any team trading for him. It would make it much easier to keep its average new money of $28 million intact while limiting real cash flows for the new year to about $22.5 million through 2026.

Below is what a theoretical deal could look like, which adds two additional years and also maintains a new cash average of $28 million and a cash total of $22.5 million in both 2025 and 2026. The understanding would be that a team acquiring Adams would be eager to retain him through the 2026 season. After that, he will likely retire or be cut at age 34.

Assuming Adams ultimately only got three years of a contract like the one shown above, the dead money for 2027 would only be $4.928 million. Obviously, if a team trading for Adams wanted to cut or trade him after the 2025 season, the money owed would only be $7.392 million.

As for full guarantees in either of the two contract examples I laid out above, I don’t see the Steelers guaranteeing anything beyond 2024. However, Adams could potentially get another team to fully guarantee his 2024 and 2025 amounts.

As you should be able to clearly see from my two examples, it should be easy for a team to get Adams to rework his current contract if they ultimately trade for him, especially if that team ultimately has to make the kind of trade compensation that the Raiders to ask for corpses when it comes to Adams.

I feel obliged to end this post by letting all of you who read it know that Over the Cap currently has Adams’ valuation set at $16.483 million per year, which is clearly much lower than $28 million.

The purpose of my post is to elaborate on unknown assumptions about Adams potentially wanting to maintain his new cash average of $28 million and annual cash flow through 2026 of $22.5 million. Please keep that in mind. If a team can get Adams to rework his deal at lower numbers, they will obviously go that route. These examples in my post will also change each week if Adams remains with the Raiders, as that will be another week of salary they pay him for 2024.

The Steelers can certainly make it work when it comes to trading for Adams, and we’ll now have to wait and see if they can be the team to complete a trade for him.