A front rower is always going to cop a lot more injuries long term than a halfback purely because of the work load expected from each player. Signing a prop to a deal longer than 5 years is plain irresponsible regardless of who the player is and Taumalolo is the perfect example of why you cant give out such long term contracts to forwards.
If it's true that Payne is looking to extend it will be interesting to see what length it ends up being.
He was quite vocal about not liking the 6yr deal he signed as an 18yr old and his last deal was 3yrs.
3yrs feels like a good sweet spot, because it's long enough for security, but removes risk to club and player on value.
For a star players like Payne you probably want to lock him down longer like say 4-5yrs, because it guarantees star power at the club and the salary can be budgeted to know what you have left to spend.
I think a 2yr extension gets us to the end of 2028, which would be in the first year of the new TV and CBA deal.
Most player managers should be looking to have their deals lining up around this time so it can adjust to the revised salary cap.
There are ratchet clauses, but that is a risk to clubs, because if it's aligned with player x getting certain percentage of the cap then a huge increase in cap becomes a huge increase to that player's salary, but that becomes the player's new value and they won't want to go backwards from that value.
Not saying it will happen but imagine if Payne extends and includes a ratchet clause that sees his $1.1m go to $1.5m or $1.6m because that's the new norm.
Payne might've been happy to take less than that, but that's his new value and he won't go backwards from that value for awhile.
That extra money could've been spent on other players, but if we have ratchet clauses to our star players (Payne, Patty, Walsh, etc.) then there's a risk of getting into cap trouble despite it increasing
