rod_gardner_fan_club wrote:When has a receiver commanded that much? And also, I couldn't find a cap figure on him but Jansen's number can't be that much lower, can it?
At this point, Jansen is more a name than a player....the kind of player that "Old Dan" would've signed. Johnson is injury-free and in the prime of his career.
Jansen is coming off of another season-ending injury and can contribute at a decent (not high) level for maybe 2 more seasons. You can't expect more than that.
85 is healthy and just turned 30. He's in great shape and can most likely continue as a #1 receiver for at least 5 more years, barring injury.
This is not the NBA, where teams want to acquire aging or nonproductive players with soon-to-expire contracts to help their cap situation and have more money for free agency the next year. In the NFL, the fact that Jansen and Ocho Cinco both have high cap numbers is more of a hindrance than a help. NFL trades are driven by production and not salary cap "slots", which is one reason that they're much rarer than NBA trades.
From a production standpoint, Ocho Cinco is much more valuable than Jansen at this point, even though both have high cap numbers. To make this trade, the Bengals would need to get a minimum of two 1st round picks in order to justify the loss of production without reduction in salary that would result from this trade.