Wrong Packer Lineman?

[kingwhicker]

I'm from NC and have lived here all my life- I'd prefer to play in Dallas, in fact, I wouldn't play anywhere else- I would not enter the draft and just sign a league minimum contract as an UDFA, just to help the team I love out- course, I'm a Cowboys fan and not an egomaniacal, money driven pro athlete either.

 

[Derinyar]

Right now all we can hope is that he makes a comeback next year.

 

[Eskimo]

These are Rivera's salaries the next few years:

2006 1875000.00
2007 2000000.00
2008 3000000.00
2009 3000000.00

I'm not so sure the best thing isn't to cut him post-June 1st next year and just wipe the slate clean. I think we should probably give him a chance in TC to see if he has recovered his form after a full offseason program but I honestly believe we could find someone better for $2M in the market.

I know some will talk about the cap hit but no matter what we do now that money is gone forever. The key issue is whether we are better off using the future cap money in a different way.

The cap hit for a pre-June1st cut is $7.2M.
The cap for for a post-June1st cut is $1.8M in 2006 and $5.4M in 2007.
Rivera will have been paid $9.7M for his one year of service - basically the highest paid OL in the league.

Someone needs to have a serious talk with BP & JJ about signing all these "character BP" guys at the end of their careers and at non-premium positions to huge FA contracts with big SBs.

I think part of the problem was due to overcompensation for inactivity in the 2004 FA market - they wanted to jump right out of the gun. I don't know why they went out with the attitude of getting such old players when it should have been obvious to everyone that we would not be prime contenders this year.

If you're going to go after a high-priced FA at least go after one that is reasonably young and plays a high-impact position. They followed the formula with Henry and it was working until the injury. They abandoned the pattern with Rivera and Fergy (who I think has done what I expected him to do - just thought he was overpaid).