The Melbourne Football Club this week secured Christian Petracca to a monster seven-year deal which has attracted plenty of discussion.
Kane Cornes believes the Demons may have pulled the trigger a little early on the mega contract for the 25-year-old, despite the fact he is playing the best footy of his career in 2021.
The deal is reported to be more than $1 million with SEN’s Sam Edmund reporting as such.
WE have underplayed the Christian Petracca contract. It's a seven-year contract to stay at Melbourne, but it is worth more than $1 million a season. It's a monster deal through to 2029.
— Sam Edmund (@Sammy__Edmund) May 5, 2021
With the Demons flying at the top of the ladder and with a number of other players on good money, it begs the question: What will the Petracca deal do to their salary cap?
Former AFL recruiter Matt Rendell ha explained how the Dees can avoid major problems down the track, given that the likes of Steven May, Jake Lever and captain Max Gawn will see their next contracts reduced as they age.
The club will also need to find some money for the impending increased contracts of quality youngsters Luke Jackson and Kysaiah Pickett with the go-home factor a possibility.
“I would say that May, Lever and Gawn are probably their highest paid players at the club,” he said on SEN’s The Captain’s Run.
“They were well paid to get them out of their clubs - Gold Coast and Adelaide with May and Lever - so I think their next contracts will come down.
“Which allows Petracca to go up and leaves some room for Jackson and Pickett, who are the two obvious ones,” Rendell added.
“They’ve tied him (Petracca) away but the problem with Jackson and Pickett is that they’re interstaters, WA and SA, and clubs there are going to come hard for them. It’s going to drive their price back up if they want to stay.
“That’s something they’re going to have to deal with then, but I suppose by the time they’re commanding big dough, Gawn, May and Lever will be way down the pecking order.
“That’s how you try and work your list, especially when you’re in the window like they are to win a premiership. I can’t see too many of their players retiring in the near future, so they’ve got a window for quite a few years.
“It will require some tricky management of their TPP salary cap.”
Rendell also touched on midfielder Clayton Oliver, who recently penned a two-year deal until the end of 2023, and what could potentially occur with him in a couple of years.
“He re-signed to take him to free agency,” Rendell added.
“Of course, if he keeps his form up he goes to free agency and he’s going to get offered quite a bit of dough elsewhere.
“I think Oliver is a bit easier to replace than Petracca right here, right now. Petracca offers a lot more from an offensive point of view.”
The Petracca deal comes on the back of a fine 2020 season where he won the Keith ‘Bluey’ Truscott Medal as Melbourne’s best and fairest and claimed this maiden All-Australian blazer.
Simon Goodwin’s Dees are sitting pretty on top of the ladder with a faultless 7-0 record ahead of Saturday night’s meeting with fourth-placed Sydney at the MCG.