Several big-name players are making their contracts frustrations known and asking their teams for new deals -- including DeSean Jackson, Chris Johnson, Frank Gore, Matt Forte, Osi Umenyiora and Reggie Wayne, among others. Which player most deserves a new deal from his team?
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</table> Of all these players, Johnson is the most vital to his team. He's clearly outplayed his rookie contract and is one of the few individual players fans show up to see. Besides that, if he's not on the field, the Titans are stuck. They don't have enough depth at that position or playmakers at receiver outside of Kenny Britt. Johnson's also the biggest asset Matt Hasselbeck or Jake Locker could have.
You also look at the other players on this list. No slight to them, but they aren't the best players on their respective teams. Johnson is the Titans' best player. So he should be paid accordingly.
Johnson has a pretty good argument. He's blown the doors off any expectations the Titans or the NFL in general had of him coming out of East Carolina. Tennessee undoubtedly wants him around for a long time, but it's understandable ownership will use any leverage available to avoid paying him -- namely, the current rules on holding out and, you know, the fact that Johnson still hasn't played out his rookie contract.
Some of this potentially comes down to relationships. Vince Young was very close with owner Bud Adams. Don't you think that if VY played as well at quarterback as Johnson has played at running back that VY would be near Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in compensation? Johnson wants to be in that neighborhood -- and knowing him, he'd have several tricked out cars in the driveway.
I feel for Jackson, as he watches the Eagles spend big on free agents. Where is his slice of the pie? That is clearly a reasonable request for one of the bright young playmakers in the league.
But Johnson truly deserves a raise. The Titans even agreed with him last season, giving him a modest bump that was supposed to appease him. (I understand that, as the good Commissioner was kind enough to offer NFL.com and NFL Network employees free lunch and dinner all last week during the start of free agency.) Pay the man already. Johnson's earned the right to be paid like one of the best backs in the league. After watching DeAngelo Williams get overpaid in Carolina, you cannot blame Johnson for wanting to get some well-earned loot.
Most of these players have already dropped the issue, or will shortly. Those on their rookie deals, in particular, probably will have to suck it up for one more year given the transition rules this season and how they limit holdouts. But veterans who have already accrued some savings? Little different story.
To me the Colts' Robert Mathis deserves a new day payday above and beyond the rest. Without his production -- and he is one of the three most productive ends in terms of sacks and forced turnovers the past 5-6 years -- Dwight Freeney probably isn't set to make $29 million over the next two years. Mathis has been one of the most underpaid players in the league for several years now. The time has come to do right by him. And one suspects the Colts fully know it.
The prolonged absence of any of these players obviously would be terrible news for their respective teams, but let's focus on a guy who never seems to get the credit he deserves: Reggie Wayne. He hasn't missed a game in eight years. He's gone over 1,000 yards for seven straight seasons. He's caught over 100 passes in three of the past four seasons. In other words, he's put up a decade's worth of Hall of Fame stats.
And yet, somehow, we continue to be force-fed the empty rhetoric that Peyton Manning "plays with a bunch of nobodies." Based on Wayne's production, though, it's clear that game after game, season after season, there's nobody the $90 million man depends upon more than the $5.95 million man.
Johnson has been extraordinary in his three years as a Titan. It's a known fact that running backs have a short shelf. If anyone deserves a new deal, it's him. And it should be something that averages around the top five running backs in the NFL. The Titans had $13.6 million of cap space and no excuse to avoid getting a deal done.
