Welcome back big guy
Hard to beat down on the Lions, former Redskin Martin Mayhew is their general manager and before you say another former Redskin, Matt Millen was also Detroit's general manager think about this:
Martin's first deal as the Lions general manager was to trade disappointing receiver Roy Williams and a 2010 seventh round draft pick to Dallas for the Cowboys' first, third and sixth round picks in the upcoming 2009 draft. The Cowboys then gave Roy a five year, 45 million dollar contract with 20 million dollars guaranteed.
What did Roy do for the Cowboys last season? Nine games, seven starts, fourteen catches, 198 yards. That is more than one million dollars guaranteed per catch and nearly one hundred thousand dollars guaranteed per yard receiving.
So as if Redskins fans were not already wallowing like hogs in seeing the Cowboys give up lots for a little as they prepare suffer through the 2009 draft missing two top half picks, all thanks to the Lions, Detroit goes and drops another gift in Washington's lap: Derrick Dockery, returned to the Redskins for a five year 27 million dollar contract featuring 8.5 million guaranteed dollars over the first two years.
Or was it the Bills that gave us back Derrick?
Here is the deal: when I heard on the day free agency started that the Bills had released Derrick, it seemed weird to me. After the 2006 season he left the Redskins to sign with the Bills for seven years and 49 million dollars. Two years later the Bills cut him, I did not follow the Bills closely enough to know if he played well last year, I thought he had a pretty good 2007 in Buffalo.
All this cutting teams do of guys early in big contracts is usually evidence of regret, see also Adam Archuleta in Washington and DeAngelo Hall in Oakland, that the team made such a big mistake that the cap hit from accelerating the guaranteed money and annualized slices of signing bonus is worth it to be done with a guy. Did not seem to me that Derrick in Buffalo was one of those guys. So I thought what the hell, yay for us, Derrick is back.
Then I read this Jason Reid piece last week in the Washington Post, at the end of the story is this:
The Bills and Lions had agreed to a trade last Thursday, with the Lions willing to pick up the remainder of the deal Dockery signed with the Bills and guarantee the 2009 and 2010 portions of that deal. But Buffalo failed to file the necessary paperwork with the NFL Management Council by the 4 p.m. deadline, according to a league source. Rather than pay Dockery $4.5 million for the 2009 season, the Bills released him.
Sounds here like the Bills dropped the ball.
I decided to do some homework and here is what I found. The Bills were going to release Derrick Thursday night 26 February, the night before free agency started. Derrick was due a 1.75 million dollar roster bonus at midnight that night, you see Friday 27 February is the first day of the new football year.
Curly R aside: I think we need to make this a holiday, New Football Year's Day. A day for the football ascetic to ponder the renewal of football and the end of a bottle of whiskey.
The Bills did not want to pay that roster bonus so they were going to cut Derrick. Note that by cutting him the team would have saved that 1.75 million dollars against the cap, BUT the accelerated cap hit from other guaranteed monies and the remaning five slices of his signing bonus amounts to 5.4 million dollars. That is money that cannot be spent in 2009. And I am not quite certain how saving 1.75 million against the cap and losing 5.4 million against the cap somehow nets you out to saving 450 thousand against the cap but hey I am a Redskins fan and we do not deal in pocket change like Bills fans who have to check their wallet before they order at Bennigans.
Apparently in the afternoon on Thursday, as the Bills were preparing the paperwork to cut Derrick, the Lions swooped in and offered a 2010 seventh rounder in trade for Derrick, Detroit was willing to guarantee Derrick's scheduled 2009 and 2010 salaries. God knows Detroit needs help on the offensive line. And everywhere else.
There are some adminstrative details to the story, like in order for the trade to happen Derrick would have to agree to defer the roster bonus for a few days and pass a physical, you would think at this point in the nearly one hundred year history of the NFL teams would have figured out how to do this stuff on deadline but you would be wrong.
The Bills and Lions could not agree on a deal, the 4pm ET deadline for filing extension paperwork passed and the teams were unable to execute the trade. Buffalo released Derrick, who visited the Lions the next day and I am sure had a good laugh in Detroit's little inbred face before coming to Washington to sign a five year 27 million dollar contract with 11.5 million dollars guaranteed.
As an epilogue to the story, Brian Galliford over at SBN blog Buffalo Rumblings wonders if the Lions did not game the Bills by getting Derrick in Detroit for a phyiscal, then stalling up until the 4pm deadline knowing that if the Bills did not agree to their trade demands that Derrick would then be a free agent and already in Detroit, giving the Lions the edge in signing him.
Whatever clumsy nerd sex Detroit and Buffalo were trying to have they blew it and the Redskins upgraded at left guard. That just leaves the matter of Pete Kendall, left guard the past two seasons and now a free agent whose representative just told the Washington Times' David Elfin last night that he wants to find a starting job and does not want to come back to Washington unless he can get one. He is 36 and did not miss a game both seasons with the Redskins.
The left side of the Redskins offensive line was dominant for most of last season, and I thank Pete for being a part of that. As to his desires to find a starting job at 36 with arthritic knees I say good luck, take it if you can get it. You might be able to pull a Ray Brown and extend your career and your paycheck a couple of seasons longer if you agree to stay here and be a depth player. Derrick is our man at left guard.
Derrick Dockery as a Redskin from September 2003: Jamie Squire / Getty Images from here via here.
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