But why would you want to give up 32, 56, and a great looking young corner to get OBJ on a 3/47 deal when you could just keep those assets and use that money in the free agent market? You might not get an equivalent WR but you could get a really really good player at another position or a WR that gives you 85% of OBJ, etc.Contract is a bit high but not as high as it seems. The total deal is 5 years, $90 million. But, the $20 million signing bonus has been paid out already by the Giants so that already cuts the cash owed to him by NE down to 5/70 which is fair value for someone of his ability. However breaking it down even further the meat of the contract owed to OBJ by the Pats would be 3 years/$47 million because the last 2 years the Pats could move on from him, only have $4 million in dead money in 2022(none in 2023), and save $15 million each on the 2022 and 2023 caps.
I think we frequently overvalue stars with big contracts. Its all about value-vs-cap-figure and its hard for any non-QB to produce that much surplus value if his cap figure is $15-16M, unless he is a generational player in the Watt, Miller, Mack mode. Its great to have those players on your team but not so great that you want to pay through the nose in other assets to make it happen.