Neither Jones or Washington will ever get anywhere near what they want so they can settle for chump change or both will find themselves looking for work somewhere else.
I certainly hope they both don't decide to take a hike, or we'll be scrambling to sign Tomlinson or Concussion Westbrook as a backup. Jones might hit the bricks, but I doubt Washington's going anywhere.
The extra money is nothing to us fans, but to the people that actually pay for, they wouldn't want to spend a few million on a player that they don't think will have an impact. So if our front office doesn't believe Jones will help our team, he will not be a Jet.
If he breaks down, it's pretty weak insurance. We need younger, fresher legs as backups. Not older players.
A 6th round pick in this draft isn't a waste. We'd be able to get a YOUNG depth player that has POTENTIAL. Thomas Jones lacks youth and potential. There's no reason to pay millions of dollars to an "insurance policy"...
I don't think this has been posted yet but correct me if I am wrong: http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2010/02/ny_jets_might_release_rb_thoma.html The pay cut is going to be the biggest issue and I doubt that Jones accepts it, given his stance during the previous offseason and his continued insistence on a new deal after this season.
I love TJ but 5.8 mill is just too much for what he brings to the table... In the FA market there is NO WAY TJ gets more than 2/3 mill for the next year... so why not accept a pay-cut and stay here? Reports are that he has too much pride... but if the team offers him 3 mill to play here and he ends up in say Houston play for 3 mill a season what help did he get from his pride? If he doesn't realize he IS NOT WORTH 5.8 mill then fuck him, it's not the Jets fault. If Tanny is playing cheap-ass though fuck him.
When he was asking for more last year, I wanted him to STFU and play out his contract. He did that and did it well to the tune of 1,400 yards. He did all that for a measly $2.5 million dollars last year. He signed a 4 year $20 million contract which averages $5 million per year. He has been worth at least that much. Cutting him now to save a million or two would be a super dick move and would justify players holding out for similar reasons in the future. Not a good precedent to set. Pay the man.
Because it affects the ability of the team to pay other players like Revis, Mangold, Brick, Harris...etc.
If we cut him we save close to 6 mill dollars... that isn't exactly peanuts! I actually wanted the Jets to restructure him last year but we were pretty tight on the cap... As of now he is not worth that kind of money! Do I like him? Yes. Is he a leader in this team? Yes. Is he worth 6 mill dollars? No! In fact the FO wanted him to RESTRUCTURE! Tanny doesn't want to cut him like Westbrook or LT, we want him on this team... but at the right value! We should do like we did with L. Coles... let him hit the open market, if he can get the money he wants good for him... otherwise he can re-sign with us with a better understanding of what his real value is! Every team has a budget... when they asked Tanny if with the no cap this year we'd be able to re-sign all our star players he said "while there are adavantages in a no cap season at the end of the year you still have a budget you have to look at". Do we have more space to sign our stars? Sure! But that doesn't mean we can go around throwing million of dollars around. If cutting TJ and refusing to give Leon 5 mill a season can make us re-sign Revis, Mangold, D. Harris etc I'm all for it!
In the grand scheme of things, $5 million is probably not going to have a big impact on locking up Revis/Mangold/Harris. Of course he still has some kind of budget, but unless you've seen something that said $5 million is going to prevent locking up other guys, I really wouldn't worry about that. Woody is a multi-billionaire.
From Cimini: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/jets/2010/02/thinking-jets-on-a-snowy-day.html#ixzz0gfvO6qoS From the WWL: http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/10822/jets-nearing-decision-on-thomas-jones Graham is taking good journalism to a limit with the semantic arguments but I doubt we see Jones in a Jets uniform next season.
So you're completely ignoring the fact that he is under contract and played for less than he is worth last year. Last year: $2.5 million This year: $5.8 million Total: $8.3 million That works out to $4.15 million/year for last year and this. He is worth that, so besides totally dicking him over for pure business purposes, what is your great reason to cut or restructure him, thereby setting a bad precedent for our current players that we do not honor contracts for good soldiers?
That's a different issue all together though - and I think we'd have to cut him, so he wouldn't help us with the final fuck rules.
