Who will get the bigger contract A.J. Brown or Deebo Samuel

Most Tennessee Titans fans know how much A.J. Brown is worth, but after Deebo Samuel’s huge season it is fair to ask which player will get the bigger deal.

Obviously nothing is set in stone, but right now Samuel is making a massive push to get paid and he has even publicly asked for a trade from the San Francisco 49ers.

To be fair, the reason he is asking for a trade is that he wants the 49ers to use him more like a wide receiver and less like a running back/wide receiver hybrid.

While he still wants a massive payday, he also knows that he will have a longer career if he is used correctly. The concern seems to be that the 49ers might try to run him into the ground and then pay him more like a running back and less like an elite receiver.

With that context, it is fair to ask whether A.J. Brown or Deebo Samuel will get paid more and we might have an answer.

A.J. Brown will set the market for young receivers

According to Tony Pauline, all signs point to A.J. Brown being in line for a bigger deal than Deebo Samuel:

"“Most believe Samuel’s ultimate contract will be in the range of $23-$24 million per year. He likely won’t make as much money as A.J. Brown, who could sign a renegotiated contract with the Tennessee Titans sooner than later.”"

If those numbers are correct then it seems like A.J. Brown could be headed towards a deal worth $25 million per year.

Now, Jon Robinson talked about how good the Tennessee Titans’ Vice President of Football Administration Vin Marino is at structuring deals to give players what they want, without completely hampering the team’s ability to manipulate the cap down the line.

Remember, while that is a big number it shouldn’t scare Titans fans because A.J. Brown is a great player and he deserves to be paid like it. It also has to be mentioned that the NFL’s cap is rising quickly.

In 2021 the salary cap was $182.5 million, but smart projections say that the NFL’s salary cap should reach $300 million by 2027. Is a player like A.J. Brown worth 8% of the Tennessee Titans salary cap? Absolutely.

So if you can rely on your people to manipulate cap space for you for a few years, all of these numbers will seem much smaller. With that in mind, pay your young star players, and don’t be afraid to pay them a little more than their contemporaries if it means keeping them happy and sowing discontent with the other 31 NFL teams.