It has been obvious for atleast 3 seasons that Witten has slowed down considerably. He will be 36 years old next season and a big contract and we have several free agents we could use that money on instead of TE holding on and on fumes and glory of his past. Rico Gathers I believed was held back this year because Garrett's love of and loyalty to Witten. just like Romo needed to get out of the way of the future ,Witten needs to hang up the cleats.
Witten was never a speed merchant. My guess is you're perception of "has slowed down considerably" is just parroting what you've heard other posters and people say. He has probably slowed, father time catches up with all of us, as it has with Larry Fitzgerald. But that doesn't mean that he's not effective in the total aspect of what this team expects from the TE position. I like Hannah, Swaim and the POTENTIAL of Gathers. But the potential for Gathers is just that, potential. I don't believe he got any reps on the practice squad this year so it is largely a lost year for him. I'm not in favor of spending a high draft pick on a TE this year - maybe one of 4th round comp or later is ok.
Maybe his salary of $6.5m is high, but I seriously doubt they're going to cut him. However, I'm sure he would be open to some type of restructure if they needed him to. Say do something like rework to a 2 year, $1m salary with $5.5 bonus. He'll still get $6.5m this year, but drop the cap hit $2.75m. I don't expect him to play after this year so that's at the expense of next year, but the cap is in much, much better shape to have the $2.75m dead money hit in 2019.
