The Jets restructured Bart Scott’s contract before last season to save cap room. Now they are paying for it.
Scott is guaranteed $4.2 million in 2012, plus a $250,000 workout bonus. The Jets would love to avoid paying that for an aging, part-time player with diminishing skills. With that in mind, Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News reports that the Jets have given permission to Scott to seek a trade.
The rest of the league has informally replied: “Good luck with that.”
There’s no chance Scott would get that much guaranteed money on the open market. So there’s even less of a chance that a team will give up a draft pick in order to pay Scott.
The bigger question following this news: Will the Jets simply cut Scott when they find no takers for him? Mehta writes it is unlikely because of the guaranteed money.
As Mike Tannenbaum and the Jets try to build a roster with fewer off-field issues, they may be hesitant to bring back a player so clearly unhappy with his playing time last season.