Within the past week Jamal Lewis, Brian Westbrook and LaDainian Tomlinson have all been released. No real shock value there, but do any of these have anything left to offer or should they all just hang it up?
I tend to think someone will give LT some kind of deal, but that teams may shy away from Westbrook and his history of concussions and Lewis, well, should just hang em up.
Agreed Westbrook and Lewis, though I could see somebody taking a chance on Westbrook. IMO, he's still pretty effective when healthy. I think Tomlinson could still be a dangerous "situational" back, but that scenario probably depends on his ego and/or willingness to take a pay cut.
A team signing LT or Westbrook would not be making a bad move, provided they are not expected to be feature backs but instead used for the specific skills they still have. Bill Belichick in New England has been a master of picking up guys like this over the years.
They may be capable of carrying the ball 50-100 times and catching 20 or 30 passes on third down, plus knowing how to pick up blitzes. That's a valuable commodity, even if it is far from their peaks.
Westbrook can make any quarterback look better. Just ask Donovan McNabb and his 60-yard dump-offs to Westbrook.
Agree with ya'll. LT and maybe Westbrook could still play a role somewhere, just not as the feature back. And as Ghost mentioned, the question remains whether they would play for a significantly lower paycheck than they are used to.
Thomas Jones won't renegotiate and now joins the list of free agents as the Jets release him.
Though over that 30 mark, here's a guy I think has more left in the tank than those previously discussed in this thread. 27 rushing TDs over the past 2 years and over 1100 yards each of the past five seasons.
Teams considering LT and Westbrook were probably waiting to see what the Jets did with Thomas Jones. Now they know.
Another team to watch is New Orleans. Reggie Bush could become a free agent if the Saints do not pick up an $8 million team option on him, although they have said that they will. If they do not, will Bush's former USC coach, Pete Carroll, go all out to bring Bush to Seattle?