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Guard: Chris Williams, Bills
Contract Flaw: The Marginal Talent
Perhaps the 2014 offseason’s most inexplicable contract, Williams was rewarded for a year of middling guard work in St. Louis with a four-year, $13.4 million contract from Buffalo.
Center: Alex Mack, Browns
Contract Flaw: Ever Fallen in Love With a Player You Shouldn’t Have?
The most surprising bidding war of the offseason came between two of the league’s doormats, Cleveland and Jacksonville. The duo fought over Mack, an above-average center who suddenly became the highest-paid center in the league. Mack’s five-year, $42 million contract guarantees him a staggering $26 million, $7 million more than any other center in football. He’ll have a 2014 cap hit of $10 million; no other centers cost more than $7.3 million. Because the Jaguars structured the deal to discourage Cleveland from matching, they also left Mack with a player option in 2016, which he can use to hit free agency again. No center is worth this sort of deal, even a good one.
The All–Bad Contracts Starting Defense
Defensive End: Kamerion Wimbley, ans
Contract Flaw: Paying for the Outlier
The 13th overall pick in the 2006 NFL draft, Wimbley was ticketed for s om after accruing 11 sacks in his first season with the Browns. Since then, he’s been consistently disappointing. He has averaged six sacks per season in the seven ensuing campaigns, with his profile artificially raised by a four-sack performance on Thursday Night Football in 2011 against backup Chargers tackle Brandyn Dombrowski. The ans brought him in on a five-year, $35 million deal in 2012 to provide sacks, but he lost his starting job last year and had to settle for a restructured three-year deal to keep his roster spot this offseason.
Defensive End: Everson Griffen, Vikings
Contract Flaw: Ever Fallen in Love With a Player You Shouldn’t Have?
A promising backup who has accrued 17.5 sacks across four seasons with Minnesota while playing behind Jared Allen and Brian Robison, Griffen was marked for the starting lineup after Allen’s contract expired this past offseason. The only problem? Griffen was also about to hit free agency. To avoid losing him, the Vikings gave the 26-year-old a stunning deal. Despite starting just one career pro game, Griffen was signed to a five-year, $42.5 million contract that guarantees him nearly $20 million. If Minnesota had that much faith in Griffen, why didn’t it extend him during his time as a backup, when he surely would have come cheaper? The best-case scenario is that Griffen delivers on his promise and lives up to the massive deal. The worst-case? Minnesota just gave a superstar’s deal to a player best used in small doses.
Defensive Tackle: Jason Hatcher, Washington
Contract Flaw: Paying for the Outlier; System Guy Out of System
Hatcher had spent years as a backup 3-4 end in Dallas before 2013, in which two key things happened: The Cowboys moved to a 4-3 defense, and they hired defensive line guru Rod Marinelli to coach their linemen. Hatcher kicked inside to tackle and had an enormous year as an interior pass-rusher, leading a disappointing Cowboys defense with 11 sacks. He’d had just 16 sacks across his previous seven seasons. Washington, exhibiting its usual wisdom, saw this and signed the 32-year-old Hatcher to a four-year, $27.5 million deal in which he will once again become a 3-4 defensive end more than a thousand miles away from Marinelli’s tutelage. And even that might be generous; Hatcher will miss part of training camp after having his knee scoped.
Linebacker: Paul Kruger, Browns
Contract Flaw: Paying for the Outlier; System Guy Out of System
After struggling to carve out consistent playing time during Kruger’s first three and a half seasons in Baltimore, injuries and subpar play led a desperate Ravens team to turn to him, their second-round pick from the 2009 draft. He responded with 12 sacks in his final 12 games as a Baltimore player, culminating with two sacks in the Super Bowl win over the 49ers. Cleveland saw the possibility to steal a young pass-rusher away from its rivals and gave Kruger a mammoth five-year, $40.5 million deal with $20 million guaranteed. He mustered up a mere 4.5 sacks in his first year with the team, often looking like their third-best pass-rusher behind rookie Barkevious Mingo and supplanted in bent Jabaal Sheard.
Linebacker: Philip Wheeler, Dolphins
Contract Flaw: Ever Fallen in Love With a Player You Shouldn’t Have? (But mostly Letting Jeff Ireland Touch the Checkbook)
In his last offseason as Dolphins general manager, Jeff Ireland decided that he wanted to revamp his linebacking corps. Out went Kevin Burnett and Karlos Dansby, the latter of whom would produce a Defensive Player of the Year–caliber season for Arizona for $2.25 million. In, on enormous contracts, came Dannell Ellerbe and Wheeler. Ellerbe, a competent player being paid like he’s a star, is merely overpaid. Wheeler received a five-year, $26 million deal and was so bad during his first season in Miami that the Dolphins would surely have cut him in March if it wouldn’t cost them $10.6 million on this year’s cap.
Linebacker: Erik Walden, Colts
Contract Flaw: The Marginal Talent
A practice squad journeyman who caught on with the Packers during their Super Bowl run, Walden is a replacement-level talent who can serve as a competent run defender at times. The Colts gave him a four-year, $16 million deal with $8 million guaranteed, perhaps owing to a rare big game Walden had played against the Colts the previous season. Good organizations find players with Walden’s skills in the free-agency market and replace them with the next Erik Walden when they get expensive; bad organizations pay a premium for the name brand when the generic is just as good. Of course, sometimes, bad organizations fall into Andrew Luck, too.
Linebacker: Jon Beason, New York Giants
Contract Flaw: Paying for the Outlier
After struggling with injuries for two years, Beason lost his middle linebacker spot in Carolina to Luke Kuechly and his spot in the starting lineup to former Giants special-teams wizard Chase Blackburn. Carolina then dealt Beason away to those same Giants, who seemingly haven’t invested in linebackers since Bill Parcells was around. Beason miraculously stayed healthy and was a productive part for a defense that got better as the season went along. Instead of thanking their lucky stars that Beason solidified things and moving on to a player with a less-checkered injury history, the Giants gave Beason a three-year, $16.8 million deal with just over $6 million guaranteed. By June, Beason had suffered a serious foot injury that is expected to keep him out for the remainder of camp and, possibly, part of September.
Cornerback: Orlando Scandrick, Cowboys
Contract Flaw: Ever Fallen in Love With a Player You Shouldn’t Have?
Scandrick was a decent slot cornerback who represented solid value when he was making fifth-round pick money; Jerry Jones gave him a five-year, $25 million deal in 2011 that paid him like a starting corner. Then, with the team facing its annual cap woes, Dallas extended the deal to 2018. The good news is that Scandrick has been better than Morris Claiborne, who has been a disaster since Dallas traded up to draft him with the sixth overall pick of 2012. The bad news is … oh, it’s all bad news.
Cornerback: Kyle Arrington, Patriots
Contract Flaw: The Marginal Talent
For a defensive genius, Bill Belichick has really struggled to identify cornerback talent over the past decade or so with the Patriots. He has repeatedly wasted first- and second-round picks on corners who failed to develop, and as a result, he’s been stuck using undrafted free agents and late-round picks in key roles. One of those journeymen was Arrington, a versatile, willing defensive back who is often picked on by opposing offenses. Despite his being benched during 2012, the Patriots surprisingly gave him a four-year, $16 million contract before the 2013 season. He found himself limited to slot duty and was New England’s fourth-best cornerback for most of the season. With Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner now in town, Arrington’s buried even deeper on the depth chart, but it will cost the Patriots more to cut Arrington ($4.9 million) than to keep him ($3.6 million).
Safety: Dashon Goldson, Buccaneers
Contract Flaw: System Guy Out of System
The 49ers have one of the league’s best defenses, but bad things seem to happen to the players who leave Patrick Willis’s warm embrace each offseason. Players like Aubrayo Franklin and Takeo es have failed to impress elsewhere after succeeding in the Bay Area, and Goldson might be the next player on that list. After forming a big-hitting partnership with Donte Whitner, Goldson hit the free-agent market in 2013 and finally got the long-term deal he craved, signing a massive five-year, $41.3 million deal with the Buccaneers. He spent his first season with the team overrunning plays and seemingly daring the NFL to suspend him for his illegal hits. The NFL finally obliged in November. The fourth-highest-paid safety in football, Goldson still has $9 million in guaranteed money remaining on his deal over the next two seasons.
Safety: Troy Polamalu, Steelers
Contract Flaw: Ever Fallen in Love With a Player You Shouldn’t Have?
Nobody doubts Polamalu’s legacy as an all-time great Steelers defender and a likely future Hall of Famer, but the former USC star simply isn’t the player he once was, as he lacks the range to play the rover role he perfected under LeBeau and is often reduced to relying on his instincts and film study to guess how a play will turn out, with little chance of recovering if his guesses are wrong. A capped-out Steelers team probably shouldn’t have given Polamalu an extension in 2011, but they did themselves no favors by restructuring the 33-year-old’s deal this offseason to pay him $22.6 million through 2016.
Of course, it’s impossible to avoid bad contracts. Every team in football has a bad deal or two on its books, and that’s not going to change. Variance is too powerful. By being forward-thinking and avoiding high-risk deals like the ones I’ve mentioned here, though, teams can reduce their exposure to contracts that are likely to blow up in their faces while saving money for the players they need to lock up.
. in fact, Philip Wheeler and Kam Wimbley are 2 guys they let walk instead of overpaying to outbid and keep'em
