I have argued for years that most contract discussions are flawed. Total value doesn't matter, average value is often completely meaningless, even the guarantees don't matter a lot. For the players, actual guarantees are part of it, but the most important should be how much will they get in the first two or three years, whether actually guaranteed or not. It used to be that a player was nearly certain to get the first three years of a big contract, but that is less certain now. Two years are quite certain, however.

For teams, two things are important:

1. How much does it cost against the cap in any given year to keep him.
2. How much does it cost against the cap in any given year (or two) to get rid of him.

If you can manage to keep both of those at tolerable levels, you've done a good job.

Some teams have been good at handling it, others have not. For the most part, under Wolf and TT the Packers have been very good at managing those issues. Sherman was not very good at it, which manifested itself in the KGB, Sharper and Wahle situations.

By and large, the Packers have avoided situations where they were required to keep a player because they couldn't afford to cut him, and situations where they had to release players just because they couldn't afford to keep them. They have sometimes kept players who were seemingly overpaid, but they didn't really have to, and they have released players they didn't want to pay, but they could have kept them. In short, their decisions have been roster based, not contract based when cutdown time comes around.