This has been in play for months - eg. hawkins contract 'structure' issues, Motlop keeping his deal to 2 years, etc. salary cap space doesn't magically open up overnight. But combined with Cook's comments re: free agency causing a revision of how they apply the salary bands, yep, anticipating a heavily front-loaded deal which will give Adelaide 2 things:
1. An argument to suggest they're not interested in matching, and
2. A chance to maximise the compensation they receive.
As a hypothetical, Cats say willing to pay an average of 850k a year to Danger. Perhaps the first two years is done at 1.55m each to create issues for the crows, with the following four years (under a subsequent extension once he's in) is done at 500k per annum. This also gives the club space to pay the up and comers more as they rise in value (Motlop, Guthrie, Duncan, etc) as well as be able to pay Hawk on a more back-ended deal. New TV rights will also help with timing.
So if we throw a 3m plus deal to Danger over a 2 year period, AFL might have sufficient cover to hand out two comp picks. There is no transparency as to their magic formula anyway, and have already flagged that they'll change it to suit different contract values now getting thrown around. So if a contract worth <500k is now worth a 2nd round comp pick, what is a contract of over 1.5m per annum worth?
Backup plan is still the ability to make them choke it down with the pick 14 compensation in need.
We don't have to bend over here, and it's highly doubtful that the current board with all of its strategy and deal-making experience (Carter, Drummond, etc) would then be prepared to sacrifice club champions like SJ, Kelly, etc as well as let Cook, Hocking and Wells swing in the breeze as it all fell over. This would be a catastrophic failure by some pretty experienced professionals if it all went pear-shaped, and I for one don't see it happening. This has been planned for a very long time.