Raiders Sign Tommy Kelly to Richest Defensive Tackle Contract in NFL History
February 28, 2008 by David Kindervater
Filed under Oakland Raiders
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Blogging the National Football League, Blogging the NFL
The Oakland Raiders are out of their minds. On this eve of free agency, the Raiders signed defensive tackle Tommy Kelly to an NFL-record seven-year, $50.5 million contract. A little over $18 million is guaranteed.
Some of you may be wondering who Tommy Kelly is. He’ll be entering his 5th season with the Raiders out of Mississippi State (he was originally signed as an undrafted free agent), but he hasn’t exactly lit up the league. Tommy’s a decent run-stopper with some pass rushing ability, but he’s far from an elite DT. He only has 13 career sacks. Plus, he’s damaged goods coming off an ACL tear that limited him to seven games last season.
This is an insane deal. What it will do is raise the bar significantly for other (hopefully better) defensive tackles to get huge deals. Good for DTs, yes. But bad for the other 31 teams who are hating the Raiders right now and will have to match or beat this kind of money for a quality defensive tackle.
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Check out what others are saying about this post...[...] as expected, Oakland is still insane. I am more convinced everyday that the front office for the Raiders is run by helper [...]
[...] up for the Oakland defensive secondary. Of course, I’m still scratching my head over the Tommy Kelly deal, but again, the Raiders are finally making a smart decision. Aside from his on-field meltdown in [...]
[...] who, or in this case what, the Raiders pick? Al Davis will throw ungodly amounts of money at it because he’s crazy. And then Jamarcus Russell will probably end up eating [...]