Wow. Words fail me ... oh, first! ever!

Davis is far too slow to play left tackle. However, he is huge, and with good coaching he could be a good guard or run-blocking right tackle.

Still, $50M. WTF.

AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAH

If they let him block people in front of him he will be a real asset. If they make him move around or chase speed rushers then it's a big waste of money. Doubt the cardinals are sad to see him go.

If memory serves, Davis was one of the better guards (and should make a fine right tackle). I'm not sure he is ideal for the amount of salary cap he will take, but I think Dallas will be better with him at Right Guard, assuming they can keep Colombo at Right Tackle.

I think he would improve any team, including Washington, if he was placed at Right Guard when that team has two good tackles. Just don't expect him to line up and do as well at Left Tackle against speed rushers.

Not at a price tag of $50 million they're not. Last I heard, Leonard Davis had not demonstrated himself to be the second coming of Larry Allen - perhaps Jerry Jones is going senile with regard to personnel management.

Oh wait...

$50 million is a lot of money, but don't criticize the Cowboys for paying it. The market was set when Dockery, Steinback, and Dielman received similar offers. All four players are pretty good guards (but not Pro-Bowlers), and Davis has the added advantage of being able to play right tackle or back-up at left tackle.
With the market for a good guard set at $50 million this year, I hate to see what a premier left tackle will ask for (and get) in the next year or two.

What a wonderful time to be mediocre!

Yes. More of that kind of sound business sense, please Cowboys...

I'm going to throw a little party now.

I like the deal for the Cowboys. It's the going rate for a good, but not great guard in this market. Davis offers that, with a much higher upside. He has ridiculous physical talent (although not quick enough for LT), and he probably looked worse than he is in the desert due to a lack of surrounding talent and poor coaching. Personally, I'd rather have HIM for that money on a well-coached team with veteran leadership than a player like Steinbach or Dockery who probably have reached their ceiling.

7.

Dielman at least was the first alternate for the Pro Bowl. I dont know about the other guys.

How good does Shawn Andrews 7 year, $40 million contract look right now? Good move, Eagles.

Is there anyone in the history of the league who has been paid more and been worth less than Leonard Davis?

That's a lot of money to risk betting that a guy will stop sucking, especially a guy going into his 7th season. It seems like it would be easy to be a standout OL in Arizona considering how bad the other four guys are, but in six years Davis has been nothing but a money pit. So, thanks Jerry! We Eagles fans like what you're doing and strongly encourage you to keep it up.

What ever happened to the old-fashioned strategy of drafting O-lineman in rds 2-6, developing them for a couple of years, and then letting them play? Have all the good line coaches dropped off the face of the planet or something?

16: It's what the Chargers have done.
McNeill - round 2, 2006
Dielman - undrafted free agent, 2003
Hardwick - round 3, 2004
Goff - free agent signing 2004
Olivea - round 7, 2004

Imagine what Steve Hutchinson might have got if he had stayed in Seattle one more year and hit the market this year.

re: 16 It's also what the Colts do.

Re 7: Just because other teams are overpaying for a certain position doesn't mean that other teams should. It can put a team in a tough spot if they really need to upgrade at a specific position, but long term a team will be better served by spreading the money around at positions that are being underpaid at market value.

18 - yep, that Hutchinson deal that seemed ridiculously high a year ago now seems par for the course...

Giants fans were legitimately angry with Jerry Reese "caving in" and giving Shaun O'Hara a 5 year, $19 million dollar deal with $7 million guaranteed. In light of these contracts, given that O'Hara is at least at the level of all 4 of these dopes, and most likely better...

I'm happy.

Re: 18

Imagine what Steve Hutchinson might have got if he had stayed in Seattle one more year and hit the market this year.

Well, if he were to have played at the surprisingly mediocre level that he played with the Vikings in 2006, and teams actually recognized that fact, he probably would have received around the same amount that he actually did get.

I'm surprised that the failure of Steve Hutchinson, a player far more widely heralded than any of the linemen to be signed this offseason, to live up to expectations, let alone justify his ridiculous contract, has not scared teams off from wasting money on non-LTs. Perhaps the problem is that the Vikings' signing of Hutchinson is not widely enough regarded as a mistake. Most of the articles on Hutchinson focus on the "mistake" of the Seahawks to place only the transition tag on him or on how Walter Jones and the running game suffered without him. They generally fail to mention that Hutchinson simply did not play very well in his first season with the Vikings. Heck, he still made the Pro Bowl and, worse still, finished in seventh place in the 2006 Football Outsiders Awards for best offensive lineman. If the conventional wisdom is that the Hutchinson signing was a wise one, as mistaken as that belief is, I can see why teams would continue to award overly large contracts to lesser offensive linemen.

As a Skins fan, I'm happy not only that Dallas did this to themselves, I'm happy that they prevented the Skins from doing it.

Re 16:

It's also what the Patriots did until a couple of years ago.
Nick Kaczur: 3rd Round
Stephen Neal: Undrafted (converted wrestler)
Dan Koppen: 5th Round
Logan Mankins (the exception...1st round, but pick #32)
Matt Light: 2nd Round

I was really hoping Dallas would trade down a few spots and draft Auburn guard Ben Grubbs. Oh well. We'll see what happens. If Colombo is re-signed, he and Davis could be a formidable right side. Neither is very good in space, but the power running game to the right side should be something, and the pass protection pretty good as well.

RE: 16: In the Cowboys case, Bill Parcells happened. Not sure how much blame (if any) you can pin the 2003 drafting of Al Johnson (2nd round, C) on BP. But it's known that in 2004 he wanted Jacob Rogers (2nd round, T) even though others in the organization voiced concerns over his injury history. That year, BP also was on board with Stephen Peterman (3rd round, G). BP's fingerprints were all over the 2005 draft, but confident Rogers would rebound and Peterman would develop, the OL was neglected until the great Petitti was taken in round 7. Last year again saw the OL neglected until round 7 when BP chose Pat McQuistan and the recently released E.J. Whitley. It's a sad fact that McQ will probably turn out to be BP's best OL selection.

The two best Cowboys linemen, Flozell Adams and Andre Gurode, were already in place before BP got there - although it took a while for Gurode to find his groove because he was moved immediately to guard, which BP himself called a mistake he had to undo.

#22:

Just what makes you say that O'hara is "most likely better" that the other offensive linemen? Is it the fact that he's 2.5 years older than Dielman, almost 3 years older than Steinbach and 3.5 years older than Dockery? Whats your measuring stick to say the a center is better at his job than a certain guard is at his job? Please outline your argument. Thank you

The market was set when Dockery, Steinback, and Dielman received similar offers.

No, the market was set when Washington expressed a willingness to pay that kind of money specifically for Leonard Davis. Had they not, then Dallas could have signed him for less, regardless of what the other guys got.

(For all I know, Wshington was bidding up the price just to stick it to their division rivals and would never have signed such a deal themselves.)

You know, Jerry, if you really want to get Tony Romo killed, you can hire a very skilled assassin for considerably less than $50 million.

I have a question...

If all of these guys, who honestly haven't really proven themselves to be the very best, are getting this much money, then how much money are the top NFL draft choices going to get this year?

I think the ones at the very top got something in the range of 56 million dollars last year, correct?

If salary inflation holds up, the top guys this year should go beyond 60 million fairly easily. At least that makes sense to me.

Or will the salaries stay about the same, the result of teams have already blown their money in free agents before draft day?

clearly no matter how much u suck, being highly drafted reaps benefits your whole career.

I don't get why people are lumping all these guys together.

Dielman and Steinbach are widely acknowledged to be pretty damn good linemen. Davis and Dockery, not so much. That they got what seems to be pretty similar money does not make them pretty similar in effectiveness, and questioning the wisdom or sanity of these deals en masse makes no sense.

I would like to thank Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder for assuring the Eagles future as the dominant team of the NFC East.

Why is Davis getting hammered so bad? I live in Arizona, and watched him play, and he seemed quite good. I don't doubt you guys, but want to know what you're basing this on.

I've seen him get beat, but I've seen lots of players get beat, he was especially bad trying to cover for other people's mistakes.

Since there is no team listed in the headline, I was terrified that the Redskins had signed him. I was all ready to rant about the folly of signing castaways from bad teams to large contracts, a Redskin favorite.

Thank you, Football Gods!

Was Dielman really that good this year? I know he stood out in the EPC on the Chargers line that MDS did this year, but Dr. Z. (far from scientific I know) didn't even grade him out. In the three or four Chargers games I watched this year I tried to pay particular attention to Dielman knowing that he would be a free agent and the Cowboys would need an upgrade over Rivera. Mostly what I saw was Dielman on the ground while Goff knocked over anything in sight, often enough getting to the second level. Hardwick and McNeil both stayed on their blocks really well and Dielman seemed to benefit from that. Sometimes, of course, the line did nothing and LdT slipped through the tiniest crack of daylight and ripped off ten yards. On the other hand, I don't recall many details of Dielman's pass blocking, which I think means it was better than average.

I'm not going to argue that the Cowboys didn't overpay for Davis, but one thing in his favor is the success two other Cardinal castoffs had with the Jets last year (as a different EPC by MDS showed). Coaching and/or scheme certainly seems to have played a part in the Cardinals offensive woes the past few seasons, and Davis's potential is still enough to have this biased fan perhaps foolishly hopeful.

37 Good enough to be named the Co-Offensive Lineman of the Year (with Marcus Mcneil) by the Chargers as well as being the first alternate at guard for the Pro Bowl.

This is getting ridiculous

What would an actually good guard like Alan Faneca make if he were a free agent? 90 million?

#32: One of the things that becomes pretty clear when you look at contracts in general in the NFL is that they're ridiculously tiered. There aren't even gradations - there's great, average, and bad. That's it. Everyone in those tiers gets basically the same total money contract.

The difference in actual money comes whether or not the players can actually earn all of that money.

Just because the contracts look the same doesn't mean they are. (That's why it's not surprising Dielman's is lower total value. Since he's not actually switching teams, there's no big push for a heavily incentived contract).

Re 33:
Meanwhile the nfc south is the eagles daddy... don't worry eagles fans when mcnabb gets hurt again this year the redskins and cowboys will be duking it out for the playoffs again a la 2005

Re 15:

I think it's exactly the opposite. It's easy to look like a bad linemen unless you are surrounded by at least competent teammates.

Look at Walter Jones, and Steve Hutchenson. Both were considered by many to be the best player at their position in the league in 2005 then they separate and both look start to look very average.

#38 What would an actually good guard like Alan Faneca make if he were a free agent? 90 million?

I think you mean "a younger Alan Faneca." Part of these big deals are for the future years, and Red doesn't have so many.

Az Cardinal fan here. Leonard Davis lead the team in false starts,maybe 5-7 per year, one false start was on the 9 yard line with 10 second left, the penalty ended the game. He is big, but very slow and never reaches the second level on run blocking. He misses blitzes and allow defensive players to reach the QB untouched. Leinhart was injuried last year on a LT complete miss on the DE ( non-blitz). Russ Grimm the new OL in Az didn't see anything in Leonard Davis and the underachiever was released.

14.
Anyone named Mike Williams.

Re: 39 Yeah, people get all riled up about the numbers every year, when usually players don't see anywhere near the "value" of the contract they sign. Pretty much the only people that do are QBs like Manning, Brady, Favre. The contracts have to be dissected before you find out what they're actually worth.

Also, who wants to bet Davis gets cut around this time in 2009?

#22:

The reason that the O'Hara deal looks like a cave-in is that the Giants put an ultimatum on the table and O'Hara called their bluff. Plus they ended up actually paying more (in total $$) than the original press leaks of his contract demands in January.

Personally, I think he's an above-average center, but not by a whole lot. I don't know that I would definitively rate him higher than any of these guys, except in that C a harder position to fill than G.

To get back to the main topic, Davis should be a force in the run game, but I look forward to seeing Osi Umenyiora and Matthias Kiwanuka run right by him on passing downs.

I believe this could very well be a good signing because leonard Davis still has the talent and ability to dominate because of his sheer mass and right off the bat him not having to be a LT and constantly going up against 250-270 pound speed rushers will help him in the pass game and he has always been a devastating blocker and if the cowboys can resign marc colombo and move davis to RG then I believe he can be one of the most dominating guards in the game

Folks, it is impossible for all these people to be overpaid; this is simply the market now, and these signings were very predictable.

I think someone made this comment in the Nate Clements thread but with the cap going up so much, this contract might look like a contract with a total value of $30-$35 mil a few years ago. High, yes, but not as high as it's being perceived...

Re: 32

questioning the wisdom or sanity of these deals en masse makes no sense.

Sure it does, if your point is that non-LTs are systematically being overpaid. Some may be more overpaid than others, but that doesn't mean that they're not all part of the same unfortunate trend.

Re: 49

Folks, it is impossible for all these people to be overpaid

It's far from impossible, Will. If the position itself is being overvalued, then a lot of players at that position are going to be overpaid. The same thing has been going on for years among "elite" RBs (where, by the way, is the article on the ridiculous Ahman Green contract?). The past two years, in my opinion, the position of guard has been overvalued at least by those teams that have handed out huge contracts to guards. But what do I know? Maybe guards previously were undervalued and I am living in the past by continuing to undervalue them.

#49: It should also be noted that you could've predicted this just from cap inflation alone. The fact that all these teams have tons of cap space isn't affecting the market a ton.

The only thing that's a bit surprising is the guaranteed money, but that's because teams are spreading it over multiple years, and the news media is still reporting it as a "signing bonus" even though it's not.

CA, if therse guys are all overpaid, then eventually there will be a market correction, and we'll see a reduction in contracts. No, markets are not perfectly efficient, but they are not perfectly inefficient either. There is a lot more money available than two years ago, teams are managing their caps much better, in terms for frontloading bonuses which don't have cap impact in future years (Hutchinson's cap number in future years is very manageable, for instance) and this market is very unlikely to see a significant correction. There isn't anything ridiculous or unfortunate about what is happening here.

Pat, I wonder if what is being reported as guaranteed is a series of roster bonuses, which are in fact not fully guaranteed until the given year that the bonus comes due. Could this be the latest ploy by agents to garner bragging rights for themselves?

To put the exact figues to it, the cap has increased 27% in just two years.

Roster bonuses can't be guaranteed at all. Otherwise they're not roster bonuses.

What they're reporting are fakey-guaranteed option bonuses, where if the option bonus isn't taken, salaries are guaranteed and boosted. That's the only way you can guarantee a later-year bonus without having to prorate it immediately.

One thing that could also be happening that wouldn't be reported is that the "guaranteed" option bonuses might actually not be as guaranteed as people think.

Think about it this way: suppose the contract looks like this: 5 years, $10M signing bonus, $1M salary in each year, and a $4M option bonus in year 2 that gets listed in the press as "guaranteed". So you have

Option bonus taken:
year 1: $1M salary, $10M signing
year 2: $1M salary, $4M option
year 3: $1M salary
year 4: $1M salary

Now if the option bonus isn't taken, the salaries are going to jump up and be guaranteed to cover it. But there's two ways that can happen:

Method 1:
year 1: $1M salary, $10M signing
year 2: $2M (guaranteed)
year 3: $2M (guaranteed)
year 4: $1M

and something like
Method 2:
year 1: $1M salary, $10M signing
year 2: $4M (guaranteed)
year 3: $2M
year 4: $1M

Both of these contracts would look like they have $14M guaranteed. The difference is that the first one is $18M total value if option is taken. $16M total value if option isn't taken, and the third is $18M total value if option isn't taken.

If you take a look at Adam Archuleta's contract, for instance, his is slightly different: it's something like (if option not taken):

year 1: $1M, $10M signing
year 2: $1M (guaranteed)
year 3: $1M (guaranteed)
year 4: $2M (guaranteed)

The important thing here is that those "guaranteed option bonuses" aren't really guaranteed in the same sense that a signing bonus is - yes, they're going to get the money, but they might end up getting the money "guaranteed" in the form of salary for multiple years. Which means, in the end, they could end up making less money if the team keeps them on for a year or two.

#47

I'm extremely happy with the O'Hara contract in light of Vishante Shiancoe signing with the Minnesota Vikings for the EXACT same amount. Vishante Shiancoe? What tape did they watch to determine that was his value? They do realize Shiancoe isn't the crazy white TE with long hair and a chronic ankle injury, right?

51: Sure it does, if your point is that non-LTs are systematically being overpaid. Some may be more overpaid than others, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not all part of the same unfortunate trend.

Great--you have a point distinct from the people who are saying "lol all this money for all these mediocre guards", like the players involved are essentially equal in effectiveness, which I don't buy.

> "To put the exact figues to it, the cap has increased 27% in just two years."

But is the sharp increase being distributed fairly evenly, or disproportionately towards the higher-end free agents? Some of these signings including (make that especially) the Leonard Davis one suggest the latter. In theory such a temporary windfall might most wisely be used by spreading it throughout an entire team in the form of extensions and such, but I question whether in practice that is really happening. If it's not and the salary cap again levels out over the next several years, then the cap spike might mostly have benefited those relatively few players with good market timing. That might be how one expects a market to behave, but where the supply is limited over a period of time resulting in an increase in average price that is less than smooth or "efficient".

37: OK, Dielman was the 1st alternate guard for the AFC and Steinbach was the 2nd alternate. Leonard Davis was the 2nd alternate Tackle for the NFC and is known to be better at guard (where, IIRC, he was an alternate earlier in his career). I don't think being a pro bowl alternate is a good measure of quality, but if we want to look at it that way, maybe Dallas just made a better signing than anyone is giving them credit for.

How was Davis rated as a Guard, where he played earlier. I seem to remember a FO writer suggesting he was a decent or good RT when not facing speed rushers or playing in space.

By comparison I remember hearing he was around average for LT (or below average) and a very good Guard (if not forced to pull and play in space?).

If this is the case and Dallas can re-sign Colombo (which is a priority) then I believe Dallas could have an improved Offensive Line.
I believe Washington, if they signed Davis, would have played him at Guard, too.

As an Eagles fan, this is why I love Jerry Jones.

62: The closest thing I have to objective data on Davis's guard play: he received 4 votes for the AP All-Pro team in 2001 (which would have made him third-team if there was such a thing). By comparison, Eric Steinbach has only ever received 1 vote (for the 2005 team). Dielman received 6 votes last year, the first time he's shown up in AP balloting. Derrick Dockery's only vote came last year as well (evidently there's one voter who doesn't consider getting flagged much of a negative).