Rams must decide Finnegan's fate
• By Jim Thomas
[www.stltoday.com]
When it comes to the secondary, the Rams’ offseason game plan hinges on one question: What to do with Cortland Finnegan?
After a slow start, the veteran cornerback suffered a fractured orbital below his left eye in Game 4 (against San Francisco) and played in only three of the final 12 games of 2013. It now looks like surgery won’t be necessary.
“That’s a bone issue,” general manager Les Snead said last week. “As we all know with bones, only time can heal that. It’s not a major (injury) but because it’s up near your eye we’d better let this thing heal.”
The larger question, however, is does Finnegan fit into the Rams’ plans for 2014 and beyond? A cornerstone addition made during coach Jeff Fisher’s first couple of months on the job, Finnegan is two years through a five-year, $50 million free-agent contract that brought him here from Tennessee.
Finnegan started out with a bang, intercepting a pass in each of his first three games as a Ram in 2012. But he was slowed by nagging injuries late in that season and never really got going in 2013. He yielded three touchdown passes in the first four games of this season, and then came the fractured orbital.
The Rams may want Finnegan back for next season, but it seems almost a certainty it won’t be without a restructured — and reduced — contract. Otherwise, Finnegan is due to be paid $9 million and will count $10 million against the salary cap in 2014. The $9 million breaks down as a $6 million base salary and a $3 million roster bonus due the third day of the “league year.” (In other words, three days into the free agency/trade period, which starts March 11.)
Add $1 million to the total due to proration of Finnegan’s original $5 million signing bonus over the five-year length of the deal, and you get your $10 million cap count in 2014.
Interestingly, the $3 million roster bonus is guaranteed — the last of $27 million worth of guaranteed money in the contract. But there is offset language tied to the roster bonus. For example, if the Rams release Finnegan and he’s signed by a new club that pays him $2 million next season, the Rams are on the hook for only $1 million of that $3 million roster bonus.
As was the case during the nine games that Finnegan missed with the fractured orbital, the Rams would be extremely young at cornerback without the eight-year pro, who turns 30 on Feb. 2. A secondary minus Finnegan would leave the team with a pair of third-year players as starting cornerbacks next season in Janoris Jenkins and Trumaine Johnson and no clear nickel back.
Before Finnegan’s injury, he slid into the nickel role covering slot receivers when the opposing team was in three-wide receiver sets. Starting free safety Rodney McLeod bailed out the Rams this season by sliding down from safety to cover slot receivers in the nickel.
The only other cornerback on the current roster who figures to contend for playing time is Brandon McGee, who’s fast but still very raw. As a rookie in 2013, McGee participated in only 78 plays on defense, or little more than the equivalent of one full game, so he didn’t get much seasoning.
Among the list of pending free agents at cornerback are Alterraun Verner of Tennessee, Captain Munnerlyn of Carolina, Vontae Davis of Indianapolis and Tarell Brown of San Francisco. But with nearly two months remaining before the start of free agency, many of these players could end up re-signing with their current teams before they reach the market.
Brandon Browner and Walter Thurmond of Seattle both are pending free agents, but Browner has been suspended indefinitely for violating the league’s substance abuse policy, and Thurmond was suspended four games this season for violating the drug policy. So buyer beware on both players.
Despite a late-season back injury, Jenkins was one of the iron men on defense, playing in all but 19 of more than 1,000 defensive snaps this season. Snead disagreed with the notion that Jenkins’ play regressed this season from his rookie year.
“We put him probably in some more stressful situations this year, so from that standpoint he progressed,” Snead said. “The staff trusts him. He can go cover their best player without any help. ... Maybe the interceptions were down. He made some big plays, and a couple people made some plays over him that you want to clean up.”
Jenkins gave up six touchdown passes this season, all against teams’ No. 1 receivers or co-No. 1 receivers: Two to Seattle’s Golden Taint, and one apiece to Arizona’s Larry Fitzgerald, Chicago’s Brandon Marshall, Atlanta’s Julio Jones and Carolina’s Steve Smith.
Jenkins also was among the league’s most-penalized defensive players, ranking second in charged penalties (penalties that weren’t declined) with 12, and ranking third in yards penalized (121). But he did lead the team with 18 pass breakups to go along with one interception. He had chances for a few more interceptions but couldn’t finish off the play.
Jenkins and Johnson both have five career interceptions, which ranks among the leaders in terms of players drafted in the class of 2012.
“They’re touching the ball,” Snead said. “But that’s not the standard. They can get better. At the end of the day I think it was a progression.”
• By Jim Thomas
[www.stltoday.com]
When it comes to the secondary, the Rams’ offseason game plan hinges on one question: What to do with Cortland Finnegan?
After a slow start, the veteran cornerback suffered a fractured orbital below his left eye in Game 4 (against San Francisco) and played in only three of the final 12 games of 2013. It now looks like surgery won’t be necessary.
“That’s a bone issue,” general manager Les Snead said last week. “As we all know with bones, only time can heal that. It’s not a major (injury) but because it’s up near your eye we’d better let this thing heal.”
The larger question, however, is does Finnegan fit into the Rams’ plans for 2014 and beyond? A cornerstone addition made during coach Jeff Fisher’s first couple of months on the job, Finnegan is two years through a five-year, $50 million free-agent contract that brought him here from Tennessee.
Finnegan started out with a bang, intercepting a pass in each of his first three games as a Ram in 2012. But he was slowed by nagging injuries late in that season and never really got going in 2013. He yielded three touchdown passes in the first four games of this season, and then came the fractured orbital.
The Rams may want Finnegan back for next season, but it seems almost a certainty it won’t be without a restructured — and reduced — contract. Otherwise, Finnegan is due to be paid $9 million and will count $10 million against the salary cap in 2014. The $9 million breaks down as a $6 million base salary and a $3 million roster bonus due the third day of the “league year.” (In other words, three days into the free agency/trade period, which starts March 11.)
Add $1 million to the total due to proration of Finnegan’s original $5 million signing bonus over the five-year length of the deal, and you get your $10 million cap count in 2014.
Interestingly, the $3 million roster bonus is guaranteed — the last of $27 million worth of guaranteed money in the contract. But there is offset language tied to the roster bonus. For example, if the Rams release Finnegan and he’s signed by a new club that pays him $2 million next season, the Rams are on the hook for only $1 million of that $3 million roster bonus.
As was the case during the nine games that Finnegan missed with the fractured orbital, the Rams would be extremely young at cornerback without the eight-year pro, who turns 30 on Feb. 2. A secondary minus Finnegan would leave the team with a pair of third-year players as starting cornerbacks next season in Janoris Jenkins and Trumaine Johnson and no clear nickel back.
Before Finnegan’s injury, he slid into the nickel role covering slot receivers when the opposing team was in three-wide receiver sets. Starting free safety Rodney McLeod bailed out the Rams this season by sliding down from safety to cover slot receivers in the nickel.
The only other cornerback on the current roster who figures to contend for playing time is Brandon McGee, who’s fast but still very raw. As a rookie in 2013, McGee participated in only 78 plays on defense, or little more than the equivalent of one full game, so he didn’t get much seasoning.
Among the list of pending free agents at cornerback are Alterraun Verner of Tennessee, Captain Munnerlyn of Carolina, Vontae Davis of Indianapolis and Tarell Brown of San Francisco. But with nearly two months remaining before the start of free agency, many of these players could end up re-signing with their current teams before they reach the market.
Brandon Browner and Walter Thurmond of Seattle both are pending free agents, but Browner has been suspended indefinitely for violating the league’s substance abuse policy, and Thurmond was suspended four games this season for violating the drug policy. So buyer beware on both players.
Despite a late-season back injury, Jenkins was one of the iron men on defense, playing in all but 19 of more than 1,000 defensive snaps this season. Snead disagreed with the notion that Jenkins’ play regressed this season from his rookie year.
“We put him probably in some more stressful situations this year, so from that standpoint he progressed,” Snead said. “The staff trusts him. He can go cover their best player without any help. ... Maybe the interceptions were down. He made some big plays, and a couple people made some plays over him that you want to clean up.”
Jenkins gave up six touchdown passes this season, all against teams’ No. 1 receivers or co-No. 1 receivers: Two to Seattle’s Golden Taint, and one apiece to Arizona’s Larry Fitzgerald, Chicago’s Brandon Marshall, Atlanta’s Julio Jones and Carolina’s Steve Smith.
Jenkins also was among the league’s most-penalized defensive players, ranking second in charged penalties (penalties that weren’t declined) with 12, and ranking third in yards penalized (121). But he did lead the team with 18 pass breakups to go along with one interception. He had chances for a few more interceptions but couldn’t finish off the play.
Jenkins and Johnson both have five career interceptions, which ranks among the leaders in terms of players drafted in the class of 2012.
“They’re touching the ball,” Snead said. “But that’s not the standard. They can get better. At the end of the day I think it was a progression.”
