FWIW, Cooks would not be a free agent long.
He would get handed a substantially larger paycheck then his 2M remaining this year.
And he may be able to get all 20M of his remaining GTD salary.
How??
Well he could very well get a Michael Gallup contract.
Gallup got 5 years, 57M with 23M GTD.
Now a 30-year old Cooks likely doesn't get a real 5-year deal but he could get 3 years with 2 void year on end for cap purposes.
So something like:
12M SB,
2022 remaining -1M
2023 6 Mil ---This 2 years and 19M is all GTD
2024 5M --so 3 years 24M actual deal.
2025 void year for cap
2026 Void year for cap.
cap cost:
2022: 3.4M
2023: 8.4M
2024: 7.4M
2025: Dead 4.8M