Welcome to the New England way of doing business. Which is a lot like the 49er way of doing business in the 80s. Smart teams only pay for their players' best seasons. Is Andre worth $11.5M in 2015? Heck no.
Sad end in Houston for the franchise's top player, but it's standard NFL business procedure. Ask Jerry Rice, Brett Favre, Joe Montana...etc. I really did think Johnson would take a pay cut to stick here, but that was an optimistic, sentimental viewpoint in hindsight. As sad as it is to see AJ go, he is 34... moving on and spending that kind of money on a player under 30 makes a lot of sense. Finding a WR to average 11 YPC - about what AJ did in 2014 when he was a year younger - isn't as hard as you might think.
I don't see him landing in Denver, since the team already has such a strong corps of WRs there as it is, but who knows. I do think he probably takes an offer from a team with deep playoff aspirations over a better financial offer.
|