Let’s Review:

-Daniel Graham, 5 years, $30 million, $15 million guaranteed

-Eric Steinbach, 7 years, $49.5 million, $17 million guaranteed

-Patrick Kerney, 6 years, $39.5 million, $19.5  million guaranteed

-London Fletcher, 5  years, $25 million, $13 million guaranteed

-Leonard Davis, 3 years, $24 million, $18.75 million guaranteed

-Ahman Green, 4 years, $25 million, $7 million guaranteed

-Drew Bennett, 6 years, $30 million, $10 million guaranteed

To borrow an expression from Mr. Belding…

What is going on here?! 

NFL free agency has officially gone nuts. Occasionally in my days at IU, I stayed awake during economics, despite my professor’s best efforts to render me unconscious, and I learned a little something about supply and demand. If supply is low, scarcity occurs which drives  up demand which then drives up price. And that’s exactly what’s happening in the NFL, I’m sure this isn’t breaking news to anyone. Demand is way higher than supply and thus teams are paying ridiculous salaries to players that are maybe worth a fourth of it.

I was in my car about 20 minutes listening to The Worldwide Leader and they were going to have John Clayton on to discuss free agency and  ask him whether or not the current amounts being paid to this year’s free agents was a good thing. I didn’t need to listen to “The Professor” to tell me that this spelled trouble for franchises in the future.

What you have in the NFL right now is what you have in baseball, especially with pitchers. The supply of quality pitching in major league baseball (starters, relievers, closers and set-up men) is so low that when one hits the free agent market, a feeding frenzy ensures. Sound familiar?

Anytime when a player like Drew Bennett or Leonard Davis are getting the kind of guaranteed money that they sign for then something is horribly wrong. But what the owners don’t realize is that they’ll be kicking themselves next year when it comes time to re-sign guys. Do you think a receiver like Marvin Harrison or Anquan Boldin or Torry Holt isn’t going to look at Drew Bennett’s deal and say ‘Well I’m way better than him and my contract better reflect that.’ Of course, they will.

I don’t blame the players or their agents for getting what they’ve gotten. They’re capitalists just like all of us and they are paid what they market can bear. But here’s the thing… the owners and GMs determine the market.