That's totally off my point. Don't know how I can explain it any clearer, but let me try one more time:
Let's say you could magically exchange me, a 65 year old guy with bad knees, for Zeke, with the same contract. So by your reasoning, just because I get $15 million a year, I should be one of if not the top running backs in the NFL. That's not the way it works. The money he gets is entirely separate for HOW the player plays.
If you still don't get my point, sorry, I can't explain it any better....
I have no idea how you could get that from what I said. I said the contract gets him on the roster, which is true, and gets him on the field, which for all practical purposes it will. I didn't say anything about his performance.
Of course how much he gets paid is separate from how well he plays. That's true but uninteresting.
In your example, if you had Zeke's contract, I (as the team owner) would be completely screwed. I can't cut you, because the cap hit is astronomical. So I have to keep you on my roster, whether I play you or not. So you're taking up enormous amounts of cap space and you're taking up a valuable roster spot and giving me nothing in return.
What you originally said was, "So what do fans want to do? Sit him? That's great, let's waste 15 million dollars this year because he's not tearing the league apart." This is the sunk-cost fallacy. The money is gone (as you say) no matter what performance he gives you. If the team is better with him sitting, then you should sit him. But whether you play him or sit him, you've wasted $15 million and a roster spot if he's not making the team as good or better than alternative uses of that $15M would have. And you can't fix it, because you can't cut him.
