San Diego Chargers close to signing an extension with Corey Liuget

The San Diego Chargers and Corey Liuget are reportedly close to agreeing upon a five-year extension that if completed would pay the defensive lineman $50 million. Michael Gehlken of the San Diego Union Tribue reported this today via Twitter:

Chargers near extension with Corey Liuget. Five-year deal to average a little north of $10M a season, sources said: http://t.co/YzKdhd2rxN

— Michael Gehlken (@UTgehlken) June 8, 2015

As you probably all know by now, the initial numbers reported for NFL contracts rarely reflect the actual real-world value of those deals. Five years averaging $10 million per year assumes that Liuget plays out the entire deal without being released or restructuring any of the money in later seasons. That's possible given that Liuget only turned 25 years old in March and is still expected to improve as a player, but it's not a given. Not until we see the actual terms of the deal can we be sure if the Chargers agreed to a good, poor, or fair deal.

$10 million per year is in the same vicinity of Geno Atkins, but that's not really an especially fair comparison because Atkins is on a rather team friendly deal. Still, it looks like the Chargers are going to pay for a projected improved future performance.