Joe Horn is dead to me.

(Until he retires, that is. Then he will be welcomed back into my good graces.)

One point, though (and apologies for the Saints talk, non-football fans.) Joe Horn has been a great receiver for the Saints. But he’s getting old — he’s 35, and he’s missed big chunks of the last two seasons with injuries that wouldn’t heal. Under his old contract, he was supposed to be paid $5.5 million next season — a number that’s too high for an old guy getting slower and with injury problems.

So the Saints asked him to take a pay cut. He refused and the Saints released him.

So now he signs with the hated Dirty Birds, the Saints’ chief rival, out of spite. And he signs a four-year contract worth $19 million. Hey, that’s almost $5 mil a year, right?

On paper. The contract actually only pays him $7.5 million over the next two seasons (about $3.75 mil per). Then he supposedly gets $11.5 million in the last two years of the contract. But none of that money is guaranteed, and I’ll bet anyone $5 that he never sees it. As if slow, breaking-down Joe Horn is going to get paid more at ages 38 and 39 than today? After two years, the Falcons are going to ask him to take a pay cut because he’ll be too expensive (or else they’ll cut him altogether). Those last two years are purely to make Joe feel good.

08 March 2007

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