5 new NFL contracts that will age disastrously in Week 1

Week 1 in the NFL is all about reacting to what you see. Some of it might be overreacting, but the key to overreacting is to never admit that you’re overreacting. You just keep overreacting until everyone stops listening to you, and then you act like you never said anything to begin with. One of the best things to react* to is how much someone who played poorly is getting paid. 

Take the 2024 offseason: the Philadelphia Eagles paid Bryce Huff a lot of money. In Week 1, they played the Green Bay Packers in Brazil, and Huff was terrible. The immediate talks about him getting paid too much wasn’t an overreaction because Huff ended up actually being bad the entire season. These are some guys whose paycheck could be on the hot seat after Week 1. 

Hot Seat: Millionaires

Basing the value of a player on his average salary is for schlubs. Is it good at a glance? Sure. Is it moderately accurate? Eh. Kind of. Teams can do all kinds of wacky stuff with the salary cap… a salary cap, mind you, that is (almost) always growing at a mega-high rate. 

You also have to go to Spotrac and see what percentage of the salary cap the player’s annual salary takes up. That’s how you see how much a team values a player. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than just looking at some unfathomable seven or eight-digit number.

When we’re looking at contracts that will be disasters, we’re looking at the percentage of the salary cap… and also just who the player is. 

Osa Odighizuwa, Defensive Tackle, Cowboys

Some of the biggest losers in the Micah Parsons trade are the guys who used to play next to him. That includes defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa, who the Cowboys re-signed in free agency to the tune of $20 million per year (7.16%).

It went from Parsons drawing all of the attention to Odighizuwa and Kenny Clark drawing the attention. That’s smoke that they neither want nor can handle. Especially when their Week 1 matchup is against the Eagles’ perennially super-sick offensive line.

On top of that, in Jerry Jones’ press conference after the Parsons trade, he kept putting the Cowboys’ defense on blast for not being able to stop the run. That’s a Streisand effect-adjacent move. 

Now, when Saquon Barkley runs for a billion yards against them, everyone is going to look at that defense and say, ‘Oh wow. Jerry was right. That defense really is terrible against the run. Who’s No. 97? Ode… Odeghez… Whatever. That guy’s getting de-cleated every play. How much is he getting paid? $20 million? I saw a guy online who said that’s seven percent of their salary cap. Woof.’

Eric Murray, Safety, Jaguars

The Jaguars' defense was pretty terrible last year, so naturally, they made some additions in free agency. A notable player who signed was 31-year-old safety Eric Murray, who got a three-year contract for $7.5 million per year, which is 2.33% of their salary cap. If you’re looking to overpay a player, you’d probably like to make it a guy who’s not 31 years old.

Murray is a perfectly fine player. He’s not good, and he’s not bad; he’s just fine. As a safety, he’s more of a ‘get dirty’ kind of guy who plays a whole lot better downhill than he does in coverage.

The Jaguars are playing the Panthers in Week 1. Bryce Young looked a lot better in the back stretch of the 2024 season, but by no means could he, nor should he, be considered a gunslinger. That being said, if Young exposes the Jacksonville secondary and makes a 31-year-old defensive back look like a typical 31-year-old defensive back… their new general manager, James Gladstone, is going to look kind of like a doofus right off the bat.

Zach Wilson, Technically a Quarterback, Dolphins

It doesn’t matter how much Zach Wilson got paid by the Dolphins (it was $6 million, 2.15%); he shouldn’t be trusted to be on a football team… much less be trusted as the backup to Tua Tagovailoa. At any given moment, Tua is down to tuck the ball, run, and try to break a tackle the same way giraffes fight.

The Dolphins are starting this season on the verge of falling apart, and they are one eventual play away from having to put two to four weeks of their season in the hands of an infamously terrible quarterback in Wilson. 

To be clear, this isn’t necessarily a thing exclusive to Week 1. It just feels like it’s important to mention one last time before the season starts so we all remember to point and laugh when the garbage truck eventually catches on fire.

Milton Williams, Defensive Tackle, Patriots

On the first day of free agency, the Patriots signed defensive tackle Milton Williams to a four-year, $26 million per year (9.31%) contract. Milton Williams is a really good football player, and if he’s not a really, really good football player right off the bat, this contract is going to look funky.

Now, it isn’t really on the Patriots for having to pay him that much money. He had an awesome season in 2024, and he capped it off with two sacks and two tackles for a loss in the Eagles’ 40-6 bashing of the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX.

For what it’s worth, his contract is the 10th-highest percentage of cap space for defensive tackles. The nine guys above him are Derrick Brown (9.41%), Alim McNeill (9.49%), Nnamdi Madubuike (9.59%), Vita Vea (9.73%), Daron Payne (10.01%), Jeffery Simmons (10.45%), Quinnen Williams (10.68%), and Chris Jones (12.43%).

That means the Patriots value him more than Zach Allen (9.13%), DeForest Buckner (9.01%), and Leonard Williams (8.42%) are valued by their teams. Those are lofty expectations for a guy who really benefited from his teammate drawing double teams. It seems like the guy getting almost 10 percent of the team's cap should be a guy who has proven to both draw and beat double teams. That’s just not where Milton Williams is right now. 

In Week 1, the Patriots get to play the Raiders. If Williams isn’t able to be a game wrecker against that offensive line, there’s going to be some people thumbing their nose (or whatever Boston does when they don’t like something) at his paycheck.  

Trey Hendrickson, Defensive End, Bengals

No one had a more polarizing week last week than Trey Hendrickson. He had been holding out/in from the Bengals' practices for the entire spring and summer. Then August 25, he got a $14 million raise to bring his salary for the season to $30 million (10.39%). Three days later, Micah Parsons got traded to the Packers, and they paid him $47 million per year. 

Hendrickson waited around seven months before he restructured his contract, only for the price of his position to go up a whole lot. If he had waited three or four more days, he could’ve made a whole lot more money. That has got to be gut-wrenching. 

Regardless, the Bengals are counting on him to do a whole lot. The problem is that he did a whole lot last season, and it didn’t matter. He led the league in sacks with 17.5, but the Bengals still had one of the worst defenses… and it’s looking a whole lot like they’re going to have an equally terrible one in 2025.

The biggest problem with the Bengals paying Hendrickson is that he’s just not that good at stopping the run. Sure, getting boatloads of sacks is great, and probably outweighs his problems against the run, but it’s still a problem for a guy with his value. 

The Bengals get the Browns in Week 1. That’s a Browns offense that doesn’t have a whole lot going for it, but they’ll almost definitely be able to move the ball against whatever the Bengals throw out there to stop it. There’s a real world out there where the Browns choose to run the ball against the Bengals, and do it with authority. If that happens, Hendrickson should get put on blast. 

The Bengals have a new defensive coordinator with Al Golden, and are going to have a much more aggressive scheme. Since Hendrickson missed so much time, it will be (more or less) new to him. It’s a tough spot for him to be in, especially since a bad performance means that he’ll be losing to not just a divisional opponent, but also the worst team in the division.