Show Me the Money

NFL free agency is in full swing, although up until this weekend there had been very little movement. A few of the major signings:

Bernard Berrian signed with Minnesota for $42M
Donte Stallworth signed with Cleveland for $35M
Lance Briggs re-signed with Chicago for $36M
Former Bengals DE Justin Smith signed with San Fran for $45M
Michael Turner signed with Atlanta for $34M
Asante Samuel signed with Philly for $57M
Jerry Porter signed with Jacksonville for $30M
Gibril Wilson signed with Oakland for $39M

I am not the first person to come up with this observation, but let me just comment that it seems ludicrous for Bernard Berrian to have received a bigger contract than former teammate and Pro Bowl nominee Lance Briggs. Such is the premium for offense these days, I suppose. All I can say is, thanks goodness the NFL has a salary cap, or these contracts would be even more preposterous.

Consider that none of the wide receivers I mentioned (Stallworth, Berrian, Porter) has ever recorded a 1000-yard season. Sure, they’ve all been close, but are complementary receivers really going for an annual salary of $5M+? These guys can stretch the field, but are they go-to receivers? For those of you counting, that’s $100M in contracts signed by a group of receivers who have never proven they are All-Pro caliber. As a Bears fan, I recall a few of our previous leading receivers and none of them ever did anything after leaving Chicago. Remember Marcus Robinson? He put up 1400 yards in his second season but never broke 750 after that. Marty Booker had two consecutive 1000 yard seasons, but after being traded to Miami, he also never broke 750 yards in a season. And if there is a place where wide receivers go to die, it has to be Minnesota. Since Randy Moss left in 2004, no receiver has topped 700 yards, including the immortal Travis Taylor, Bobby Wade (an ex-Bear) and Troy Williamson. Maybe Bernard Berrian will break the trend, but I doubt it, especially with the likes of Tavaris Jackson lobbing the rock to him.

You can’t blame these teams for trying to improve themselves, but to me, wide receivers are one of the least important positions in football. Unless you have an absolute game-breaker like Moss, or someone as consistently excellent as Marvin Harrison, you’re probably wasting your money. As long as the guy has decent speed, can catch, and runs solid routes, he’ll give you 90% of what you’re getting out of these $30M guys. Look at Welker. Not to sing the Patriots’ praises, but he is exactly what some of these teams need. The Patriots were able to sign him for $18M over 5 years, about half the annual salary of what Bernard Berrian just received.

Without a solid offensive line and quarterback, it doesn’t matter who you line up at wideout, so why overpay? Maybe there’s a reason why Cleveland, Jacksonville and Minnesota are some of the last remaining members of the not-so-illustrious “Never Won a Super Bowl” club. Okay, maybe that’s not fair, but I think it is fair to question the signings. As always, time will tell, and it’s often better to try to do something than do nothing, but if I were a fan of one of these three teams, I wouldn’t be surprised to see another 700 yard/5 TD season out of these guys.