Average annual value isn’t what they get paid, though. You can sign someone to a 5/50million contract with 20 million guaranteed structured with a 1st year $5 million dollar roster bonus and 1 million base salary with 7 million dollar base salaries in year 2-4 and $30 million in year 5. Cut him after Year 3 and his AAV is still 10 million but was only paid 20 million over 3 years with cap hits of 6m, 7m, and 7m, well below his contract average.
It’s admittedly an extreme example just to prove a point, but it still shows that using AAV as a baseline is flawed. Because the cap can be so easily manipulated, it makes AAV useless in these comparisons.