It begs the question, if what he did was that bad, why is he still on the team? Are they punishing him by banishing him to the bench?
Did Clemens rape a member of the Johnson family or something? By the lengths they are taking to keep him OFF the field you might think so. (Ok, maybe not rape, but possibly a gentle molestation.)
Clemens' base salary this year is $535,000 ($937,500) if you include his prorated 1.6 million dollar signing bonus he got with his July 28, 2006 contract. His 1.6 million was spread over 4 years in addition to his salary of $275,000 (2006), $360,000 (2007), $445,000 (2008) and $535,000 (2009).
Clemens was the Jets 2nd round pick in 2006, the 49th player picked in the draft. He had a pretty decent career at Oregon. If he was at a college that gets more PR he would have been a pretty high profile guy.
When Chad Pennington got hurt in 2007 Clemens started 8 games. The Jets went 3-5 under Clemens and he was serviceable. Nothing that would catapult him into being THE GUY but no worse that many QB's have in their 1st 8 games. In fact, batter than many who became great QB's.
He lost out to Pennington in 2006, he lost out to Pennington again in 2007, he lost out to Brett Favre in 2008 (not much of a fair fight there, but he was about to lose out to Pennington again anyway), and he lost out to 1st Round pick rookie Mark Sanchez in 2009.
Yesterday, the NY Jets rookie QB Mark Sanchez in his 6th professional career game (he only played 16 college games) faded back to pass 29 times and connected on 15 of them. 10 times the ball went the Jets, 5 times it went to the Bills, and the other 19 times the ball hit the ground with no one catching hit (which I guess should be considered a positive compared to the 5 interceptions.)
I don't care who you are. You could be Joseph Willie Namath. You could be Peyton Manning, a rookie, a veteran it doesn't matter. At some point, after 3 interceptions, 4 interceptions, 5 interceptions, ....... there has to be a unanimous consensus between the 80,000 people in the stands, the millions watching on TV, the offensive coordinator, the head coach, the team owner, the QB's mother an anyone who is even heard second hand what is going on that it's not your day and you have to come out of the game and the back-up has to go it.
After Sanchez threw 4 interceptions did they think that Clemens would throw 2 more and Sanchez would only throw 1 more so the lesser of two evils was to leave Sanchez in? If you didn't put the back-up guy in on a day like yesterday, exactly when would you do it? The Jets would have received a $535,000 Salary Cap Savings if they just cut him this year. Instead, they have a kid QB that desperately needs to sit, relax, watch and learn for a bit and a back-up who apparently, the coach can't or won't play.
A buddy of mine in our office has Rex Ryan's cell phone number. He left the following message during 4th quarter of the game.
"Rex, you are paying the guy $937,500 this year! He's standing there with a baseball cap on freezing his ass off! Put him in the game and let's see what he can do, the other guy doesn't have it today! It doesn't mean that you are calling him the starter. It doesn't mean that you are creating a QB controversy; you have to try to win the game!"
Whatever Clemens did must have been really bad....... - Keith A. Baker
Keith A. Baker is a sports agent in Stamford, Connecticut. His goal is to offer a unique insight to the world of sports. Comments in his columns are for entertainment purposes only and do not reflect the views and opinions of his firm or his client.----------
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