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As you said, #2 depends on the guy, but #1 is definitely an organizational strategic choice.
If look at the contracts of GB's top paid guys (except for a special case in Arod), you'll notice a clear trend: Guarantees are around 30% of contract's total worth. That is super important!
That is very low compared with the norm given to highest paid UFAs, and even re-signings elsewhere (40-60% guaranteed is very common). For example, Shields has THE lowest guarantees of top 25 CB contracts, Daniels 3rd lowest among top 25 DEs.
Why is that super important? And why do I always say guarantees are everything in contracts?
1) Low guarantees protect the team long term - If a player fails due to skill or injury, even our top paid ones become easily "cuttable" after 2 years, meaning the dead cap hit is low due to the low signing bonus acceleration. It also means players have to keep performing well to see last, usually most lucrative, years of the deal - nice for motivation.
2) Players can be kept to the end of the contract - There are no big cap spikes forcing us to choose between swallowing a nasty cap pill, forced restructure/extension or cut. If the player performs, we can afford the last years on the same contract, and they'll usually look cheap in comparison with rest of the league at that point.
3) Players, especially UFAs, usually want the max guarantees possible - They wanna be protected in case of injury, if they fail in a new scheme or for whatever reason. The best case for a player: As much guaranteed, as early in the contract as possible. With the Packers and their low guarantee -policy, the team holds most of the cards to the player's future. For example, Pep got pretty high avg/year, but only 29% guaranteed. GB could've cut him after year one for 6.5M cap savings, if his transition to OLB hadn't panned out.
----> It's must be very hard to get top UFAs to agree to our preferred contract structure.
4) As added result (or reason) of this strategy, the actual cash paid each year is relatively even. In a contract's 1st year, GB pays the signing bonus, but a low base salary. Rest of the years they pay a higher base salary, maybe roster bonuses, but the signing bonus has already been paid (though it counts against the cap). It's a predictable structure for a team without a billionaire owner.
