Leaving money on the table at the end of a salary backloaded contract is a bit of a misconception. He was never going to see that money because if they had not worked out a trade they eventually would have cut him. Did he leave money on the table when he came here? Sure, but not all that much. With his baggage, much like TO, he was worth about what TO got out of Jerry which was $7.5M times 3. Randy got $5M here having met his incentives. So he left about $2M on the table.
Franchise for WR this year is close to $7.5M. Harrison's deal averages $9M, but he will never see the end of that deal either. I think if Randy comes back it will have to be for a little less than the franchise and a little more than he made this season. $6-7M for 5 years ($30-35M) with $20M in bonus/guarantees. Randy turns 31 this month.
Now stack that up against Stallworth who 2 years younger and is signed for $30M through 2012 with $10M in bonus/guarantees that people keep obcessing about as if it's $20M...
Here's me, trying to figure out the Stallworth contract history via Miguel's page, rather than learning to do real primary research
I'm still laboring under the delusion (which might be real) that the money we shell out this year for Dante is 11M, regardless of his actual cap money this year, which according to Miguel quoting AdamJT, should be "<6.6M". I think that's why people "obsess" about Dante - his deal seems set up for the team to evaluate and make changes if warrented,
this year. It seems like a restructure or cut situation, but that's based on my own layman's evaluation of Stallworth. For all we know, the brass is making the judgement that he's the next Moss, but you can only throw to one deep guy on any given play.
Stack up the likely contracts, sure, but stack up the production too. Let's say your 20/35/5 year deal gets Moss. The reason the big emphasis gets placed on guaranteed money, is situations like Dante faces right now. I.e., if he gets the 11M due him in 2008 we're into him for 14.6M... once it's in his pocket it might as well have been guaranteed. We're on the hook for that 11M if it gets paid out.
Simply put, unless the brass sees something I don't see in Stallworth, Moss is a bargain, and we don't need another big ticket item across from him. I say Gaffney mans that post just fine. And I won't even drag in what we think about C Jackson... if the kid can play, that's a walking opportunity cost. Evidently we don't think he can play, or at least not compete with the crop we had to work with in 07.
I think the timeline was "We'll use Stallworth as our #1. Wait holy crap, now we have Randy as our #1! WOO HOO!" So we ended up with the wanna-be #1 across from the real #1 and he did not thrive. So if we keep him, are we keeping him at 1 money?
Okay, pretty much just obsessing, as you said. But God, discussing the deals that will buy you a good receiver makes me sick when I look at what you pay for a good corner.
PFnV
