Brock Osweiler, Doug Martin among potential free agent busts
We’ll look back on the 2015 NFL free-agency class and wonder how some of the players ended up fleecing an NFL team for so much money.
[NFL free agency starts March 9. Here are Shutdown Corner’s free-agency rankings for offensive players and for defensive players and specialists. Here are the top needs for all 32 NFL teams and our top 25 free agents overall.]
Every year there are a few players who sign enormous contracts and never live up to them. It’ll happen again this year too. Everyone looks like a great investment when they’re holding up the jersey at the press conference, but here are five players who teams should be nervous about giving big deals to, before free agency starts on March 9 (for our five potential bargains, click here):
Marvin Jones and Mohamed Sanu: Might as well lump the two Cincinnati Bengals free-agent receivers in together, because it seems both will be overpaid.
It’s not even an indictment of Jones or Sanu, but there are simply not many enticing options at receiver in free agency. Jones has played three seasons (he missed another with injuries), has just 1,729 career yards and is likely the top receiver available in free agency. There’s just not much on the market. If you need a receiver, you’re going to have to overpay.
Sanu is an interesting case too. He has 1,793 yards in four seasons, and 11 touchdowns in 57 games. He had a bad case of drops in 2014, though to his credit he turned that around last season. You can still see a team talking themselves into making Sanu a priority, because he has good size (6-2, 210 pounds), is just 26 years old and, again, what other receivers are out there?
It’s not to say someone like Jones isn’t a good receiver. He is. But he’s probably best suited as a No. 2, and with this thin receiver market, the danger is having to pay him as a No. 1 to land him.
Prince Amukamara: I’m a fan of Amukamara’s talent, and had him in my top 10. But there are two things at play here: Cornerbacks always come at a premium, and Amukamara is a huge health risk.
Amukamara played all 16 games just once in his five New York Giants seasons. Not every “injury prone” player is sentenced to a full career of missing games. Some players who get that tag just have better luck later in their careers. But Amukamara is going to be paid a ton of money, and if he can’t stay healthy again, it’s going to look bad.
Doug Martin: Martin is a really interesting case. He was an All-Pro last year and deserved that honor. He was the second-best back in football last year, only behind the incomparable Adrian Peterson.
But huge running back contracts rarely work out well for the teams giving them out, and it’s worth noting that Martin was not good in 2013 or 2014. Those two seasons combined, he had 950 rushing yards and three touchdowns. Are you getting that Martin or the one who rushed for 1,402 yards last season? CBS’ Joel Corry predicted Martin will get a five-year, $35 million deal. Given the risks with Martin and running backs in general, it’s easy to see how that could turn out poorly.
Bruce Irvin: Irvin could end up being a fine signing. He’s a former first-round pick and a tremendous athlete. But there’s risk.
If a team thinks someone is a great pass rusher, it’s really rare they’d ask him to switch spots so he’s not rushing the quarterback as often. That’s what happened with Irvin. The Seahawks moved him to strong-side linebacker from end. Irvin still rushed the quarterback plenty, but wasn’t particularly great at it. He has 22 sacks in four NFL seasons.
There might also be a bidding war for Irvin. Dan Quinn of the Atlanta Falcons and Gus Bradley of the Jacksonville Jaguars have coached Irvin and have a need for a pass rusher in their defense. ESPN’s John Clayton said Irvin could get $9.5 million from either team. That’s a gamble.
Brock Osweiler: Kirk Cousins turned a great second half into a $20 million, one-year deal on the franchise tag. Sam Bradford signed a two-year, $36 million deal that can basically become $22 million for one year, which is still insane given Bradford’s NFL resume.
So here comes Osweiler, who was inconsistent in his first seven career starts in 2015, preparing to hit the open market.
Osweiler might not get $20 million annually like Cousins or Bradford, but he’s still in line to get a contract that will be well above what you’d normally expect for a quarterback with 11 career passing touchdowns. Mike Klis of 9News in Denver reported that Osweiler has a three-year deal worth more than $45 million on the table from Denver. And he hasn’t taken it, leading one to believe he thinks he can do even better. That’s the price of doing business at quarterback, though. So Osweiler is going to get paid well and whether it’s in Denver or somewhere else, he’ll immediately have the pressure of every other starting quarterback in the NFL. Perhaps he thrives — he is a former second-round pick so he has that pedigree — but it’ll be expensive to find out.
If a team hits on Osweiler, it’s a boon. But it could also very easily end up as one of the worst contracts in free agency this year.
– – – – – – –
Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
