Longtime Bears and Indianapolis Colts personnel guru Bill Tobin once told me, back when free agency was first starting in 1993 and contract amounts were starting to spike up dramatically, that “just because you pay some guy $2 million doesn’t make him a $2 million player.”
The dollar parameters seem almost quaint more than 20 years later. But the perspective is as timely now as it always has been.
Indeed, depending on the individual and the situation, paying “some guy” $2 million (adjusted for inflation to 2014 dollars) can have precisely the opposite effect, making that some-guy a very overpaid second-rate player.
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The Minnesota Vikings provided an object lesson on Tuesday when they released wide receiver Mike Wallace – the same Mike Wallace that the Miami Dolphins had enticed out of Pittsburgh with a contract calling for $60 million over five years. The deal worked out so well that the Dolphins were fine with getting all of a fifth-round draft pick from the Vikings for Wallace and a seventh-rounder – the same return the Bears got when they packed wide receiver Brandon Marshall off to the New York Jets last offseason, less than 10 months after the Bears lavished $22.3 million guaranteed on Marshall as part of a $39.3 million, four-year extension.
Underscoring the point: The Philadelphia Eagles agreed on Tuesday to trade running back DeMarco Murray to the Tennessee Titans – the same DeMarco Murray on whom the Eagles heaped $21 guaranteed million as part of a five-year, $42 million contract signed just last March.
The message: Just because you pay a guy $40 million...