Giving Big Money to Often Injured Players

I will never understand why teams in the NFL do this. They spend huge chunks of money based on potential instead of what's proven. In many cases, NFL teams love giving injury prone star players big money. I've always wondered why, because it feels as lame as when you make a pitcher the highest paid player on your payroll (I'm talking to you Steinbrenner).

I can understand guys like Albert Haynesworth. Yeah he's had the occasional injury issue, but he'll usually be good for 14 games a season. And he's been so absurdly dominant in the past two and half seasons that it's just plain worth the risk.

But then we have guys like Kris Jenkins. Now in hindsight, the Jets made an absolutely superb move to acquire Kris Jenkins from Carolina. It may have been the steal of last off-season because Jenkins in his first season playing at the 3-4 NT position was one of the three best in the league. And for eleven games he helped carry the Jets rushing defense and pass rush. Still though, Jenkins wore down at season's end, and it became apparent that the Jets needed to find a solid back-up to rotate in and keep Big Jenks healthy.

But compared to the next story I give you, Kris Jenkins sounds like nothing. In fact, for the Oakland Raiders and Jacksonville Jaguars they would have loved to get the kind of season from Javon Walker and Jerry Porter that Kris Jenkins gave the Jets for eleven games (tailing off in the last five...of course we all tend to forget that Jenkins hasn't missed a game since 2005).

But Javon Walker had major injury issues when the Raiders gave him a 6-year, 55 million dollar contract that has basically stopped the Raiders from being able to cut Walker this early into his new deal. Walker has a guaranteed five million dollar roster bonus due today, and he's going to get it, and he'll likely be on Oakland's roster in 2009. But Walker, after being signed by Oakland to that massive deal (being paid among the best receivers in the league) had just come off an injury riddled season with the Broncos where he only played in eight games. He was also still dealing with the trauma from the death of Darrent Williams.

Walker once again, only played in eight games this season recording 15 catches for 196 yards and one touchdown. Brandon Marshall had more catches in his first game back from suspension this season then Walker had in the eight games he played this year before going on IR. This shows a lot about the temper tantrum Walker through when Marshall started getting more balls thrown his way.

So Javon Walker has missed 31 games in his last four seasons. He's played in 33. That's simply pathetic for a guy who threatened to retire from Green Bay if he wasn't traded and then cried because Brandon Marshall was getting more targets. Well Oakland should have known what they were getting when Walker's emotional health was in question over the death of his best friend. I sympathize with him, but Oakland had to know better then this.

As for Jerry Porter, he made 7.5 million dollars and caught eleven passes. He appeared in only ten games. Porter was coming off a season where he was fully healthy and only posted 44 catches for 705 yards. The year before that he missed all but four games and recorded only one catch. He was nowhere near worth the deal he got, and now he's not going to ever come close to making that kind of money again.

Which leads me to two players. One signed with Miami and the other the New York Jets. Jake Grove and Lito Sheppard. The Miami Dolphins signed former Raiders center Jake Grove to a five-year 29.5 million dollar contract. Grove's talent has really never been in question. He's strong and plays with great leverage for a 6'4'' center, but Grove has started more than twelve games once in a five year career. Quite frankly, it just seems asinine that Grove would be worth that much to a team that has an undersized but scrappy, talented center in Samson Satele. Satele may ride the pine, or he'll move over to right guard. The Dolphins are paying their offensive line like an elite unit, and they are certainly capable of playing like one (talent wise, from left to right these are some of the best run blockers in the league), but there are still so many questions and a lot of them are injury related.

If Grove can stay healthy, Smiley can stay healthy, and Jake Long improve his stance and foot speed then Miami could challenge for the best offensive line in not just the AFC, but the NFL--especially now with Matt Birk leaving Minnesota.

Moving onto New York, they traded for Lito Sheppard. To cut straight to the point, Sheppard has never once started sixteen games in his career (and he's only appeared in a full season twice in his career), was demoted to nickel corner in 2007, and then lost his nickel corner job in 2008 to Joselio Hanson. Sheppard's had constant injury problems, which is probably why Philadelphia was determined to supplant him with Asante Samuel. When healthy Sheppard was one of the better corners in the league, of course aided by the impact of Sheldon Brown (Brown's metrics indicate that he was a top five cornerback in the NFL this season).

What's got me buzzing is the impact Sheppard will have if he does not stay healthy. When he's fully healthy and fully motivated he is a more than capable number two cornerback. But what will it take to keep him fully healthy? Certainly, I would expect him to motivate himself this year with a new contract and the prospect of being handed the starting job in a secondary with rising star Darrelle Revis, stud Kerry Rhodes, and the newly acquired scrappy Jim Leonhard (one of my underrated free agents to remember).

This move, if it works, should just about seal the deal for the Jets defensively, giving them one of the most formidable defenses in their conference, but it still hinges on a healthy and motivated Sheppard. And if Sheppard does play well, the Jets will have to give him a new contract, because they agreed on a ten million dollar roster bonus five days into the 2010 off-season (and I'm assuming the salary cap situation has been solved by then).

The Jets and the Dolphins, as far as I'm concerned, are right up there for best off-season acquisitions, but a lot hinges on the success of two oft-injured players who are all of a sudden a whole lot richer.