Earlier this offseason, the Oakland Raiders locked down franchise pillar Derek Carr with a five-year, $125 million contract extension. Carr's new contract made him the highest-paid quarterback in football, narrowly surpassing Colts passer Andrew Luck, if you go by either the total value of the deal or the average annual salary. Luck's practical guaranteed salary of $87 million does surpass Carr's total of $70.2 million, though.
Later in the offseason, the Raiders gave a new contract to guard Gabe Jackson, another pillar of the team's rebuild. Jackson's five-year, $56 million contract is the third-largest overall deal for a guard behind only the Browns' Kevin Zeitler and Jackson's Raiders teammate, Kelechi Osemele. The average annual value of Jackson's contract is also third-highest at the position, and his guaranteed sum ranks second.
Now, it's time for the Raiders to figure out how much to pay the man who is likely the best player on their team: star pass-rusher Khalil Mack.
Like Carr and Jackson, Mack just finished his third season in the NFL, so he is eligible for an extension right now. Like Carr, he is a two-time Pro Bowler. In three seasons, Mack has accumulated 225 tackles, 30 sacks, 200 combined hits and hurries, eight passes defensed, eight forced fumbles, and three fumble recoveries. Only five players have more sacks than Mack since he entered the league, and according to Pro-Football-Reference, only nine defensive players have been more valuable during that period of time.
Mack has been a star contributor for all three of his NFL seasons and is already a two-time All-Pro first-teamer as well. He's also under contract for two more seasons, unlike his star teammates, who were drafted in later rounds and thus do not have fifth-year options attached to their rookie-scale contracts. Mack was a first-round pick, so the Raiders have him locked up for $5,942,682 in 2017 and for $13,846,000 on his fifth-year option in 2018.
The market
What might Mack's new deal look like? Given that he's one of the handful of best defensive players in football, it's useful to look at the contracts for the highest-paid defensive players in the league. Those deals are likely to be used as a barometer in negotiations between the Raiders and Mack's representation.
Right now, there are 10 front-seven defenders on multi-year contracts that pay at least $15 million per year and have guaranteed sums of at least 50 percent of their total contract value.
| Player | Signed | Age | Years | Total Value | AAV | Guarantee | GTD % |
| J.J. Watt | 2014 | 25 | 6 | $100,005,425 | $16,667,571 | $51,876,000 | 51.9% |
| Justin Houston | 2015 | 26 | 6 | $101,000,000 | $16,833,333 | $52,500,000 | 52.0% |
| Ndamukong Suh | 2015 | 28 | 6 | $114,375,000 | $19,062,500 | $59,955,000 | 52.4% |
| Marcell Dareus | 2015 | 25 | 6 | $96,574,118 | $16,095,686 | $60,000,000 | 62.1% |
| Gerald McCoy | 2015 | 27 | 6 | $95,200,000 | $15,866,667 | $51,500,000 | 54.1% |
| Olivier Vernon | 2016 | 25 | 5 | $85,000,000 | $17,000,000 | $52,500,000 | 61.8% |
| Von Miller | 2016 | 27 | 6 | $114,500,000 | $19,083,333 | $70,000,000 | 61.1% |
| Fletcher Cox | 2016 | 25 | 6 | $102,600,000 | $17,100,000 | $63,299,000 | 61.7% |
| Melvin Ingram | 2017 | 28 | 4 | $66,000,000 | $16,500,000 | $42,000,000 | 63.6% |
| Chandler Jones | 2017 | 26 | 5 | $82,500,000 | $16,500,000 | $51,000,000 | 61.8% |
Of this group, the closest analogue for where Mack is in his career right now is probably J.J. Watt. Watt is a 3-4 defensive end and Mack is more of a hybrid 3-4 linebacker/4-3 end, but Watt is the only one among this group of players to sign an extension after his third season in the NFL. At the time, Watt was 25 years old and coming off a three-year start to his career where he registered 5.5, 20, and 10.5 sacks, for a total of 36. He was considered the clear-cut best defensive player in the NFL. Mack is 26 years old and coming off a three-year start to his career where he registered four, 15, and 11 sacks, for a total of 30. He may not be considered the clear-cut best defensive player in the NFL, but he's certainly in the inner circle of a select few.
While Watt's position in his career at the time of signing is most similar to where Mack currently stands, his record-setting contract has now been surpassed four times since it was signed. In 2015, Justin Houston signed a deal that was ever-so-slightly larger than Watt's, while Ndamukong Suh blew Watt's deal out of the water. Von Miller topped Suh by a slim margin a year later. (Fletcher Cox also signed a deal that was larger than Watt's, but he did not reset the market).
Houston was coming off a 22-sack season when he signed his new contract. Suh was coming off a five-year stretch in Detroit where he emerged as the most dominant interior defender in the league. Miller had just finished collecting 60 sacks in five seasons and was named Super Bowl MVP right before inking his new pact.
Mack is coming off a season where he was named Defensive Player of the Year, he's been named a first-team All-Pro in each of the last two seasons, and he's still not yet in his physical prime. It seems extraordinarily likely that he will reset the market in terms of total dollar value with his new contract, even if only by a small amount, with his guaranteed sum left slightly short of the market-setter at his position. That's what the Raiders did with Carr, and he's not even quite as good as Mack, relative to their peers at their respective positions.
The deal
Assuming he extends this offseason, something like six years, $116 million, with $69.6 million guaranteed sounds about right. That would give Mack the largest contract in the league for a defensive player, one yielding an average annual value of $19,333,333. His guarantee percentage of 60 percent would be slightly lower than the other players at the top of the market, and his total guaranteed sum of $69.6 million would be slightly short of both Miller's $70 million and Carr's $70.2 million, in a show of deference to the team's quarterback.
If Mack instead plays out the final year of his rookie deal, though, he could reset the market on all fronts. That's why it's better for the Raiders to get things done now. They can still make Mack the highest-paid defensive player in the league, but get him at a slight discount compared to what they'll have to pay if Mack continues on his current track -- or if someone else (Aaron Donald?) outpaces Miller's deal between now and next offseason. They have plenty of space to fit a deal like this on their books thanks to the cap-clearing maneuvers general manager Reggie McKenzie took to build the current iteration of the team, and showing future star-level players how important it is to get their current stars locked up early and at the top of the market will engender good will as well.
