It's also important to look at this from a purely economic standpoint. If we were to give in to Adams' demands to become the highest paid player on the team, our three highest paid players would be a safety, an inside linebacker, and a running back. What successful team has been built that way? Sure, we may be able to get out of Bell's contract in a year but that still doesn't make a lot of sense from a resource allocation standpoint.
I have a theory (and this isn't me taking the pee now) that any team is built around the spine, and that with a good spine you can live with mediocre elsewhere but with a mediocre spine good elsewhere won't help. So that means you build around the following positions:
- C
- QB
- RB
- DT
- MLB/ILB
- S (arguably)
What's interesting is that the NFL pays big money to a lot of outside positions - WR, OT, EDGE - but how many times do we see big talent, big money players in those positions fail to win anything despite getting paid? It's because the spine of the team wasn't good enough.