Friday, February 27, 2009

Thanks Brett

Kurt Warner can personally thank Brett Favre for single handedly destroying the free agent market for veteran quarterbacks in the NFL. Maybe Warner and his senior citizen bud Kerry Collins can chip in and send Brett a fruit basket for his negative contributions to the "over-the-hill pay day club".
Thanks to Favre's flop down the stretch last fall, the free agent market for veteran QB's will be slim pickens this off-season. In this harsh economic climate where teams are pinching pennies and not willing to take chances, guys like Warner and Collins who want short-term/high paid deals will be left out in the cold. To give you an idea what kind of cash we're talking about, Matt Cassel recently got the franchise tag from the Patriots giving him an average salary of the top 5 QB's in football at $14.5 mil a year.

Favre, however, proved that signing a seasoned vet with winning experience can backfire. Signing Favre one year after a miraculous resurrection in Green Bay was disastrous for the Jets. Not only did the Jets not make the playoffs, they are now without a quality QB...again.

One bright spot for Warner is the NFL's attempt to help teams better their rosters. They recently raised the salary cap to $127 million, up $11 mil from 2008. Warner's agent says that they expect to start the bidding somewhere in the Cassel range, and rightly so. Warner did just lead the Arizona Cardinals to a Super Bowl appearance. Unfortunately, as a GM I wouldn't risk my money and team's future on a guy that might fall apart physically or retire in the next 11 months. See what you did Brett?

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