What's a reasonable contract extension for Kamara to avoid possible holdout?

Doug B said
Here are all NFL running back current 2019 league year contracts in a sortable table -- 400 hundred players from Elliot and Gurley down to practice-squad guys.

Kamara can actually get a top-several deal without breaking the Saints' cap. Look at the column Guaranteed at Signing -- that carries more sway than Average Salary.

Given that, I look at Devonta Freeman's and Leonard Fournette's contracts (fourth and eighth on the list at the link). Compared to each other, Freeman's base salary figures per year are higher while Fournette's signing bonus was much higher. Also of note is that Fournette's entire contract is guaranteed -- he gets paid everything even if he's released or injured.

Seems like it would be a fair offer to slot Kamara between Freeman and Fournette somehow. It would be somewhat risky to fully guarantee Kamara's entire deal, but doing so might be a way to mitigate the cap hit and convince Kamara's camp to accept less than the "fluffed up" total contract numbers gotten by Elliot, Leveon Bell, and Gurley.

This is a good point. I just looked at Zeke, Gurley, and a couple others and you're right. It's mostly in roster bonuses and those type of things. I didn't realize those contracts were so "fluffy" - thanks for pointing that out.

Problem is we're sort of stuck in this rut of having to back-load everything because of the eternal dead cap we're carrying, so I'm not sure we have the luxury to structure the contracts like that. The Rams for example had almost all of the cap liability over the first three years of Gurley's contract, so they can actually cut bait after next year pretty easily. I'm not sure our finances line up to structure deals like that (front-loaded).

But Loomis is pretty damned good at what he does so who knows.