NFL Betting Lines: The Holdouts Who Should Get Paid?
Supporters of the New York Jets have two prices on their mind: 10-1, and $15.1 million. The former price is where you’ll find the Jets on the Super Bowl futures market. The latter is the minimum that cornerback Darrelle Revis wants to be paid annually, and he appears willing to hold out until he gets it.
The two prices are very much linked. Revis is widely considered the best cornerback in the NFL; the Jets need him to continue playing like it, and Revis wants to be paid like it. Nnamdi Asomugha of the Oakland Raiders is the current top-paid CB at the above-mentioned rate; Revis is an absolute bargain by comparison, due a base salary of just under $1 million this year. This is part of a six-year contract laden with incentives that he signed after the Jets drafted him No. 14 overall in 2007.
Revis proceeded to make the Pro Bowl in 2008 and 2009.
Aside from the politics and ethics of holding out, Revis has a good argument that he’s worth more than a million. But $15 million? That’s a lot of cash for one of the most overvalued positions on the football field. Three years ago, Robert Weintraub of Football Outsiders crunched the numbers from 2005 and found that the cornerback was the highest-paid position on defense (and fifth-highest overall) at an average of $2.75 million per year.
But using FO’s advanced metrics, Weintraub found the cornerback to be the least important position on defense; overall, only fullbacks and blocking tight ends were lower on his list.
Yes, even punters and kickers are more important than cornerbacks according to Weintraub – which fits the value-based football betting maxim that special teams are vastly underrated.
Offensive guards are in the middle of the pecking order, not as important or highly compensated as the tackles lining up beside them. But New England Patriots LG Logan Mankins is still looking for a bigger payday. He was one of the restricted free agents offered a one-year tender for this uncapped season, a tender that would have paid him $3.268 million for 2010.
Mankins is looking for a contract that would pay him somewhere around the $8-million mark, which would put him in line with the contract extension Jahri Evans signed with the New Orleans Saints.
Like Revis, Mankins is a former first-round draft pick (No. 32 overall in 2005) and a two-time Pro Bowl selection (in 2007 and 2009). But it’s more difficult to sympathize with his holdout, even with the unfairness of the RFA tender hanging over his head. The Patriots reportedly offered Mankins $7 million a year, which is right up there with all the other high-paid guards aside from Evans.
Second on that list: Leonard Davis of the Dallas Cowboys at $7.086 million.
Marcus McNeill has a stronger case at left tackle after getting his RFA tender from the San Diego Chargers, who are also playing hardball with WR Vincent Jackson. Both players appear willing to hold out until Week 10, at which point they have to report or lose a season of credited service, putting them right back at square one in their negotiations. McNeill and Jackson were offered just over $3 million on their one-year tenders. That would have been about average at their positions in 2005, according to Weintraub, but both players have made the Pro Bowl and are looking for better than average money.
It’s hard to argue they don’t deserve it.
With the Buffalo Bills deciding to release DE/LB Aaron Schobel, that leaves San Francisco 49ers DT Aubrayo Franklin as the last significant holdout from training camp. Franklin is a free agent, as well, but the Niners slapped him with the franchise tag – Franklin could sign right now and earn a cool $7 million.
It’s possible that he’s just avoiding having to report to training camp; Franklin suffered a knee injury in camp in 2007, and coach Mike Singletary is notorious for holding some of the most physical workouts in the league, known as “nutcracker” drills.
Nose tackles like Franklin are very important (therefore the franchise tag), so perhaps it’s best for all involved if he takes his sweet time putting pen to paper.
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