Most Overpaid (1 Titan Makes List)

SHOULD have been released to save the $6.5m

 

Polamalu just signed a 4 year, 37 million extension and Reed signed something like a 6 year, 44 million extension years ago. Eric Berry signed something like a 5 or 6 year $60 contract and I'm sure there are other out there.

Not sure if it really worked out that Hope will make the most or if this is just inaccurate.

 

I thought I heard he was making more than any other safety this season. He better step up and play like 06-08 even though that's still not good enough to be worthy of $6.5mil.

Nate is also overpaid.

 

Polamalu just signed a new deal (probably after this article was written), so he has certainly passed Hope in terms of salary for this year.

Not that that makes things much better. Hope isn't half the player Polamalu is.

 

Chris Freaking Hope, SMH @ the fact he's still employed at that salary. This guy can't run, can't catch, can't cover, can't stay healthy. Does this team really value his tackling abilities THAT much? I'll admit this though, he is a smart SS, he can knock you on your azz, and he WAS good at one point. But today Chris Hope is only worth maybe $2.5M.

 

Last year he was worth a 50 yard PI penalty in the endzone against the Broncos that cost us the game. Do I sound bitter? It's because that's the only game I could afford to go to last year and we had it in the bag until then.

 

his whinning about having too 'play 72 perfect plays' in postgame interview was classic.

 

Actually, both he and Ed Reed will make $6,500,000 in base salary this year, so he's tied. And when you factor in the bonuses and misc. bonuses, Reed makes almost $1.5 more, so that means Reed's cap hit is higher too, at $9,325,000 to Hope's $7,833,330.

Polamalu signed an extension, not a new contract. He'll finish his current one this year, and then he'll hit his big money when the extended years kick in in 2012. He makes slightly less than Hope and Reed with $6,400,000 base salary, but like Reed, his bonuses raise his cap hit to $9,037,500.

Brian Dawkins has a $9,156,000 cap hit as well, even though he makes $6,000,000 in base salary this year.

*Not saying Hope is on these levels. Just answering queries about the other safety salaries around the league*

Sharper isn't even in the NFL anymore.


Anyway, this is just a result of how his contract is setup. In 2006 when he led the team in INT's, his base salary was only $585,000. In 2008, it was $1,500,000. Two of his best years came in his first 3 seasons here (his second season here was cut short when he got that nasty spinal injury against Cincy), but since his contract was extremely backloaded, he made a little over $3 million in base salary in the first half of his 6-year/$30 million contract.

So yeah, this is the price you pay when you backload. Instead of setting up a realistic contract to pay a guy what he's worth as the years go along, you pay him small and then get bigger and bigger as the contract ages. As far as I'm concerned, he's just collecting for past performance. In most cases, teams would sign a guy to a contract like this, which gets the ooh's and aah's in the headlines, but then have him play out the small portion and then when he gets to the final chunk in his last contractual year, they cut him. So the team offers an impressive contract knowing it has an actual value that's significantly less, and usually the player accepts since the gtd. money or bonus aligns with what he's wanting.

It was actually a pretty classy move by the FO to keep him despite being in the final year of an extremely backloaded contract. I don't think he's nearly as bad of a player as some make him out to be, and I'm not going to ***** and moan about not having more unused cap space when he's a FA at the end of this year, which'll open that all up. I do like what Babineaux brings, and hope Babs starts this week to help counter the Broncos' short-to-intermediate passing game. But for a young team in transition, I think a vet like Hope is nice to have. But no. I shall be outraged over Bud Adams paying him too much of Bud Adams's money. We could've had a few extra million of cap space to not use. Tsk tsk.

 

As bad has Hope is, Lamont Thompson still gives me nightmares!

 

Friggin Lamont Thompson hahaha