What happened with these guys? Grading Gene Smith (Part I)
By Zoltan Paksa
Do you remember last year how many Jaguars players heard to phrase: “Gene Smith wants to see you in his office, bring your playbook” ? I will tell you a lot of them, more then 10+ players who had played big or minor role in the previous year and years were cut by Gene. After one season it is high time to see what happened to these guys. Let’s see if Gene was right or wrong to let them go. I will give a grade for each player the Jaguars GM let walked out from the team. I’ll give an A+ when the player did nothing since the departure from the team and I will bring D or F if the player turned out to a playmaker for his new team. This will be a two part article because Gene’s cut list was so long, so prepare some food & drink everyone! After the jump, we get started.
Jerry Porter:
Source:Yardbarker
Of course the first name of this list is maybe the worst and highest FA signing in Jaguars history. The infamous “1 million dollar/ catch” WR: Jerry Porter. He was signed for six-year, $30 million deal that includes $10 million worth of guaranteed money! For that move alone I would have fired James “Shack” Harris; not to mention the other FA busts he hired that year; and the worst draft in Jaguars history. Jerry, of course, has not found a new team in 2009 but did make headlines recently; in that that $312,000 worth of it was stolen from his car. Yeah, that alone shows you; this is not a Gene Smith type of players. Lately he was rumoured to have a workout for the Redskins; but I haven’t heard that he received a new contract yet.
Grade for letting him go: A+