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 even more so from a financial standpoint, as the Raiders were reportedly expecting some nice compensation for him in a trade.

Any team, including the Steelers, will likely view a move for Adams as just a one-year rental unless something can be worked out with his contract before a deal is made. Because of this, I wanted to look at how the Steelers could potentially negotiate with Adams on his contract in a way that would make a high trade compensation worthwhile.

As I mentioned in a post Tuesday afternoon, Adams increased salaries by $35.64 million and $36.64 million in 2025 and 2026, respectively, according to Over the Cap. Additionally, Adams can earn roster and workout bonuses totaling $610,000 each in these final two years. That’s all on top of the $13.526 million he stands to earn in 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 make the Pro Bowl, something he hasn’t done since 2022.

When Adams signed his current contract in March 2022, it was pretty clear at that point that he likely wouldn’t see out the final two years of his deal, 2025 and 2026. The totals for these past two years were essentially vague. so Adams’ new money average at this point would be $28 million. Florio wrote about this while detailing Adams’ deal.

Knowing that the team that ends up trading something significant for Adams will likely want him to rework his deal, the big uncertainty is whether the wide receiver will want to at least maintain his new $28 million average money to invest with any of it. The remaining money will be due to him in 2024. That would be a reasonable request on Adam’s part, if we’re honest.

In order for Adams to keep an average of $28 million in new money beyond 2024 without touching the remaining money he is scheduled to make in 2024, he would have to have a total of $56 for 2025 and 2026, at least on paper million US dollars for 2025 and 2026. and that assumes the term of his current contract is not affected, which would make sense for a player about to turn 32.

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

The only other question would be the total cash flow for Adams in the first new year of 2025. Would he really be asking for $28 million? I think he would be flexible on that. Let’s say $22.5 million is a total revenue through 2025 that he would accept. Consider that Adams has earned, or is at least expected to 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. Requiring him to be paid a maximum of $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 earnings in 2026, assuming he produces enough to earn it.

Instead of $22.5 million, with Adams’ respective base salaries being $33.5 million in 2025 and 2026, a small portion of that could be earmarked as a March roster bonus in those respective years if Adams requests it .

When it comes to the remaining $13.526 million that Adams is scheduled to make throughout 2024, and assuming he’s traded by the end of this week, an acquiring team that includes the Steelers could realistically sell all but Convert $1.21 million into a signing bonus and then divide that amount pro rata over three years, 2024-2026.

Below is what Adams’ revised deal would look like, as I described above, including salary cap charges.

Keep in mind that the example above is designed to not affect the length of Adams’ current contract and also to keep his new money average at $28 million without affecting his 2024 money total. However, there are other ways to skin the proverbial cat, especially if two more years were added, with those two essentially being easy years, just like the deal he’s now working on when it was signed.

Honestly, extending Adams’ current contract by two years as part of the rework could be the best way to go for any team that trades him. It would make it much easier to maintain its new money average of $28 million while capping real new year cash flows through 2026 at about $22.5 million.

Below is what a theoretical deal could look like that extends for two more years and also maintains a new money average of $28 million and cash total of $22.5 million in 2025 and 2026. The understanding would be that a team acquiring Adams would be happy to have him through the 2026 season. After that, he will likely retire or be cut at 34.

Assuming Adams only ends up seeing a three-year contract like the one above, the dead money for 2027 would be just $4.928 million. Of course, if a team that traded for Adams wanted to cut or trade him after the 2025 season, the dead money due would only be $7.392 million.

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

As you can clearly see in 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 the team ends up having to offer such a trade for compensation the Raiders apparently demand when it comes to Adams.

I feel compelled to end this post by informing all of you reading it that Adams’ Over the Cap valuation is currently pegged at $16.483 million per year, which is obviously well below $28 million -Dollar lies.

The purpose of my post is to clarify unknown assumptions that Adams may want to maintain its new money average of $28 million and annual cash flow of $22.5 million through 2026. Please keep this in mind. If a team can get Adams to rework his deal to lower numbers, they will obviously go that route. These examples in my post will also change every week as long as Adams stays with the Raiders, because that will be another week of salary they pay him for 2024.

The Steelers can definitely manage to trade Adams, and we’ll now wait to see if they can be the team to make a trade for him.