When it comes to new contracts, the number that gets publicized more than any other is the new-money average per year. When it’s time to get to the truth of new contracts, the first question is whether the new-money APY is real, or inflated.

We’ll be getting the real numbers on the George Kittle extension soon. For now, we’re told that the four-year extension contains an inflated final-year salary that pushes the new-money average from $18 million per year to $19.1 million.

Why $19.1 million? Because the highest-paid tight end, Trey McBride of the Cardinals, has a new-money APY of $19 million.

Kittle is 31. It’s unlikely that he’ll finish a five-year contract. Dumping a phony salary into the final season doesn’t impact the 49ers.

This isn’t a criticism of Kittle. It’s a reality of the NFL contract game. Agents want to be able to use the fact that they’ve negotiated the richest deal ever for a player at a given position as a springboard for recruiting new clients. The team goes along with it to make the player/agent happy, since it ultimately won’t cost the team a penny. The money is non-guaranteed, and the contract will be torn up or renegotiated if/when the final year arrives.

And the media runs with the numbers the agent disseminates, because he who hesitates has lost the thumb race on Twitter.

It’s an important dynamic to consider as the 49ers negotiate with quarterback Brock Purdy. His deal quite possibly will have a massive new-money APY, and it possibly will include some unrealistic back-end numbers and/or provide the 49ers with multiple escape hatches.

Our guess is that it will guarantee Purdy two years of pay, with the team able to make a year-to-year decision after that.

The full Kittle contract and structure might contain more clues about what’s coming for Purdy, especially since the Kittle deal was negotiated under the cloud of the ongoing Purdy talks.