An individual's worth is whatever the market is willing to pay. At the same time, regrettable contracts occur every offseason as NFL teams rush to sign players at exorbitant prices to retain talent or improve their roster.
Being "overpaid" is all relative. Positional value, market value, timing and a team's individual setup are all factors when a player signs a new deal, but what happens after that point is most important.
A franchise should be paying for what comes next, not what a player already did. The following list isn't built simply by looking at the highest-paid player on the team to see who is currently overpaid. The designation is based on compensation in relation to performance.
Each of the featured names has underperformed based on his compensation, and many of their current teams might eventually move on to clear salary-cap space whenever it's best to do so.
NFL accounting often creates funny money—numbers represented in team accounting but not in reality with actual spending—in order to make contracts more manageable over an extended period of time. Yet, the funny money is what counts toward the salary cap. In these particular cases, those numbers are too much based on the return.
Arizona Cardinals: RB David Johnson
Current Deal: Three years, $39 million ($31.9 million guaranteed)
Four years ago, David Johnson emerged as an elite running back. He eclipsed 2,100 yards from scrimmage and earned first-team All-Pro and Pro Bowl nods. He then missed all but one game in 2017 with a wrist injury, yet the Arizona Cardinals still signed him to a contract extension.
Over the next two seasons, Johnson combined for fewer total yards than he provided in 2016 alone, and Kenyan Drake took over as the lead back. However, he will almost certainly remain part of the team this fall.
"Cutting him is not an option," general manager Steve Keim said, per Darren Urban of the Cardinals' team site.
The reason is simple: It would cost the Cardinals an extra $2 million on top of his $14.2 million salary-cap hit to release him this year.
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