Did the Raiders overpay for Asomugha?
The Raiders have officially inked their shut down corner, Nnamdi Asomugha, to a new deal which makes him the highest paid player on a year to year basis. Asomugha, who signed a 3 year deal, is going to receive $28.5 million in guaranteed money over the next two years, with a club option for $16.8 million in the third year or the amount of the QB franchise tag, whichever is larger.
Wow, that’s a lot of money. Every media outlet that I’ve heard that has reported on Asomugha’s contract has stated, without hesitancy, that its a great move for the Raiders. While I’m not ready to disagree with them, I would like to look at the numbers a bit more closely.
Firstly, lets look at the guaranteed money. $14.25 million in guaranteed money for the first two years of the contract? That sort of guaranteed money is more impressive than the Raiders 2007 first round pick JaMarcus Russell will receive, as his guaranteed money is spread over his 6 year contract. Compare that even further to the borderline ludicrious pay system that is the NFL, and the fact that a player who potentially could never touch a football during a game is now the highest paid player, just makes this contract more amazing. As for that third year? SFGate has more info,
The third year will pay him $16.8 million, or the average of the top five quarterback salaries whichever is higher, according to multiple national reports. The Raiders have a team option for that third year but must void it in early March 2011 or that season’s salary becomes fully guaranteed.
As if that’s not enough, the contract includes a guarantee that the Raiders will not use the franchise tag on Asomugha again. In other words, Asomugha becomes an unrestricted free agent after either the 2010 or 2011 season.
Did I mention that Asomugha will only be 31 by the time the deal is done and will potentially be looking at another multi-million, multi-year deal?
Am I saying that Asomugha doesn’t deserve the money? No, far from it. If the Raiders are willing to pay him that amount of money, then he’s worth that much; its simple supply and demand. But if the Raiders are overpaying him even more than the crazy rookie pay scale system, and more than NFL golden boys Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll even touch the ball? It just seems like they could have signed their shut down CB for a few less dollars. Especially since the Raiders don’t seem to be headed towards Super Bowl contention in the next three years… All they’ve really done is make Asomugha the highest paid player in the league for the next three years just to have the opportunity to try and sign him to an even more expensive, longer contract three years from now, when they may or may not (ha! which one is more likely) are in playoff contention.
So, how much is a genius is Al Davis really?
You know what is going to make this situation even crazier? The fact that salary situations may be off the charts after 2011 if the NFLPA and the owners can’t agree on a new collective bargaining agreement. So in theory, the Raiders may have just paid Asohmugha an obscene amount of money over the next three years just to say that they have the best CB in the league, on one of the worst teams.
Sports Business Digest — The Oakland Raiders finally have the 3rd or 4th string QB they’ve been looking for!
Sports Business Digest — The NFL is a flawed system
SFGate — Raiders sign Asomugha to NFL’s top salary
This entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 4:01 pm and is filed under Football, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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I think the average fan can comprehend the fact the Falcons would like to recoup some of the money they invested in Vick, but the flip side of that is they made a boatload of money off of him prior to his “situation.” You can’t really blame Atlanta as you can hear all the folks heading for the exits in the Georgia Dome already. Their franchise is pretty much doomed to return to their ungloried past asap. However, there are still a lot of folks in the Peach State who feel he is being made an “example of” for various reasons/logic and continuing to beat up on Vick will further alienate some of the folks there from the football organization.
How worse could it get for Vick? Not only losing all of that money, but also his glory (his HS jersey in his high school trophy case) is going to waste.
What could have been.. what could have been.
Waste. a true waste. I agree with Troy. He’s gonna half to sell everything he is use to in his richy rich lifestyle. Did you ever see the home where the dog fighting was, it wasn’t some run down place it looked nice. (check it out here http://www.housefront.com/660646) Maybe if he sells off some of his stuff he might be able to pay back the ball club.