ESPN's Adam Schefter reported on Monday that Palmer is "highly unlikely" to restructure his current exorbitant deal:
As Schefter reports, Palmer's base salary in 2013 is set to be $13 million. Should the team decide to release him, $9.34 million would count as "dead money" against the cap, per Spotrac.com.
While $9.34 million is no small amount, cutting Palmer would allow the team to save $4.66 million, which the team could certainly use.
His base salary makes him the fourth-highest-paid player in the NFL, right behind Chris Long, Jared Allen and Peyton Manning.
No offense to Mr. Palmer, but he's nowhere near worth that kind of cash.
Judging strictly by the numbers, Palmer was an average quarterback last year. He has also proven to be just an above-average quarterback throughout his career.
Palmer's best year as a pro came all the way back in 2005, his second season in the league. He threw for 3,836 yards with 32 touchdowns and just 12 interceptions, completing 67.8 percent of his passes for a passer rating of 101.1.
If he produced numbers like that year in and year out, Palmer would be worth the amount of money he's owed.
But he doesn't produce numbers like that every year—not even close.
Comp. Pct.
Yards TD INT Passer Rating
2012 61.1% (No. 14) 4,018 (No. 10) 22 (No. 15) 14 (No. 23) 85.3 (No. 16) Career Per Season Average 62.5% 3,274 21 14.4 86.2 Simply put, he's not worth $13 million per season.
The $4.66 million the team would save by cutting Palmer loose would give it the salary cap room to do one of two things:
Sign one of the veterans available right now in free agency. Dra...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Oakland Raiders
