Kyle Arrington on the All-Bad Contracts Team
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| Kyle Arrington photo by John Wilcox/Boston Herald |
Now in the columns second-year Grantland’s Bill Barnwell goes through NFL and creates “The All Bad Contracts Team.” In year one the Patriots had no one on the list, it was highlighted by Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Barnwell cited Polamalu’s age, lack of on field impact and injury history as the reasons that the Steelers were horribly over paying. When talking about contracts the conversation should always be about what a player is going to do going forward, not rewarding a player for what they have already done. Sentimentality can kill a team’s salary cap for years. The Steelers either believed that Polamalu could continue to play with the reckless abandon that put him on highlight reels every Sunday in his mid-20’s well into his 30’s or got caught in the sentimentality of what he was and overpaid.
In year two of the column, the Patriot's Kyle Arrington appears on the list. Barnwell says this about the Patriot's corner.
For a defensive genius, Bill Belichick has really struggled to identify cornerback talent over the past decade or so with the Patriots. He has repeatedly wasted first- and second-round picks on corners who failed to develop, and as a result, he’s been stuck using undrafted free agents and late-round picks in key roles. One of those journeymen was Arrington, a versatile, willing defensive back who is often picked on by opposing offenses. Despite his being benched during 2012, the Patriots surprisingly gave him a four-year, $16 million contract before the 2013 season. He found himself limited to slot duty and was New England’s fourth-best cornerback for most of the season. With Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner now in town, Arrington’s buried even deeper on the depth chart, but it will cost the Patriots more to cut Arrington ($4.9 million) than to keep him ($3.6 million).
There are plenty of questions about Arrington on the field, especially as an outside starting corner. He is too short, too slow, lacks productive physical play, plays the ball poorly and tends to tackle too high. Though as a slot corner Arrington’s value is better. He is rarely caught out of position, plays good zone coverage and reads and reacts the run extremely well. The question is, are those skills, and the number of snaps he is on the field worth 3.6 million?
In 2013, Arrington played 72.1 percent of the snaps according to ESPN Boston’s Mike Reiss. To me that is worth 3.6 million because he stays healthy and stays on the field. Then in the 2014 off-season the Patriots brought in Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner. For the first four games of the season Arrington is going to play a key role in helping fill the hole vacated by Browner’s suspension, especially if Alfonzo Dennard is out long recovering from his shoulder surgery, or legal troubles. What happens when the Patriots are completely healthy at cornerback though? Revis, Browner, Dennard and Logan Ryan are all better than Arrington, and suddenly a 3.6 million insurance policy for Arrington seems extremely exorbitant.
If the Patriots had a cheap buyout it wouldn’t matter, they would cut Arrington. If no one else in the league brought him in, he would sign a deal for far less and then he would have great value as depth in the secondary and as a special teamer. It is a peculiar situation for the Patriots, and when roster spots start to get thin, I completely expect Arrington to make the team, because 4.9 million to cut a guy is way too much to absorb. But missing out on that potential flexibility both with a spot on the roster and in salary cap dollars seems like poor planning by a Patriots team that is usually ahead of the curve when planning ahead.
-Sully
@HookingFoul
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