When defensive end Jason Babin was cut by the Eagles, he probably thought he’d be upgrading his chances of playing for a contender.
If he did, he thought wrong.
Per a league source, Babin was awarded to the Jaguars, who at 2-9 were second on the priority list. At this point, it’s not known who else made a claim for his contract; it’s only known that the Chiefs, who have top priority, didn’t.
The next question becomes whether Babin will make noise about being involuntarily shipped to a bad team, which now holds his rights through 2015. Apart from playing for a bad team, Babin will now be playing in London once per year over the next three seasons.
If Babin opts to retire in lieu of playing for Jacksonville, the Jags would be able to recover $900,000 in signing bonus money, along with the remaining proration of his signing bonus for 2012, which by our calculations is another $88,000.Plus, he’d be giving up $1.69 million for roughly a month of work.