Big money? He got 5m a year and he played starter snaps for us. He is the 30th highest paid CB in the league. The 2 picks are being paid pennies for the next 3 seasons so it isn't like it would be crazy to pay 5m for another. Plus take a look at our defense, the way Dom calls it I would consider the top 4 CB all starters. The way we played it this year we needed at least 2 of Randall/Rollins/Gunter to make a big improvement from last season and didn't leave much room to dealing with an injury. Now we got the worse end of it where none of them improved AND we had an injury (though a predictable one) but you play with fire and let good players walk for cheap while relying solely on little proven players you might get burned.
I could see letting Hayward go if he actually got big money but the contract he got is exactly what you are looking for. That's the problem with this team at the moment we have too big a chunk of cash invested in a few players and little in between. I guess you could say we are lacking a good middle-class. So if one or 2 of the top guys get hurt or underperform their contracts that's a huge chunk of the team missing (cap wise). We need less top dollar contracts like Matthews, Peppers, Cobb, Shields and more like Hayward, Perry, Cook. Still good players but if they get hurt or something it doesn't destroy your team and you can dump them without much penalty.
Originally Posted by: steveishere