If Patrick Dangerfield was in charge of Geelong’s salary cap, he would have no issues offering Carlton star Sam Walsh a $10 million contract to lure him to the Cattery.
The 21-year-old Geelong Falcons product polled 30 Brownlow votes in 2021 and continued a stellar start to his career, breaking out as the best player at the Blues.
When asked what he would offer to try and hypothetically persuade Walsh to join Geelong, Dangerfield set the bar quite high.
“10 years, 10 million … I’d do that tomorrow,” Dangerfield told The Field podcast.
“I don’t think that’s an outrageous offer for someone. He already is in the picture as one of the best players in the game every year for the next 10 years – he’s only 21!”
Josh Jenkins however wonders whether it would even be in Walsh’s best interest to sign the hypothetical deal, given the potential for the salary cap to rise over the next 10 years and moving $1 million per season from the extreme to the norm.
“I would do it if I was Geelong trying to lure him back to the Surf Coast,” Jenkins told SEN Breakfast.
“I don’t know that I would (take it if I was Walsh). I would not want to lock myself, look at Scottie Pippen, he needed the security so he locked himself into a deal which five years later down the track was just disgusting.
“I would take my chances if I was Walsh that in five or six years, you can still sign a five-year deal, and then look at the CBA moving forward, we get out of this pandemic, the game starts to make the money back that it has lost and we move forward.
“I would take the chance that that 10 years, 10 million is unders.”
Kane Cornes however added: “I think I would take it. To have that security, I’d take it.”
The former Port Adelaide midfielder wonders how the Blues will fit Walsh into their salary cap, given the deals currently in place at the club.
“But what’s Walsh worth? He’s absolutely worth $1 million (per season) and that’s what the Carlton offer will be when it comes to that point,” Cornes added.
“I don’t know how they’re going to afford it because of the money they’re paying other players and Adam Saad, Zach Williams, Patrick Cripps, Mitch McGovern, Charlie Curnow and all these players, they’re all on big money.
“I’m not sure how they’re quite going to afford it.
“There’s what they’re worth at their current club and what they’re worth somewhere else and there would be club willing to pay Sam Walsh that $1.3 to $1.4 million.
“It’s a lot, but you look at the offers North Melbourne have thrown out to have a crack at players. You’ve got a walk-in captain who’s going to play 350 games and is hardly going to miss because he’s so durable, there’s definitely a club that would be willing to offer that sort of cash.”
Walsh is out of contract at the end of the 2022 season along with many names from the stellar 2018 draft class, including Connor Rozee, Bailey Smith, Ben King, Izak Rankine and Jack Lukosius.