Financially Motivated Sleepers?

NFL.com's Michael Fabiano wrote an article listing out a group of NFL skill position player's who for one reason or another are playing for their next contract.  In just about all of their cases, the player's are in their last year of their current contract (QB Byron Leftwich) and for some they've hit a career crossroads (RB Chris Brown). 

Larry Johnson is listed but I'm dropping him b/c he has 3 years left and I think he'll push to resolve his contract we'll before his performance of 2007 is determined (in other words, let's focus on the guys who truly maybe focused on landing their next big contract).

The most interesting ones are:

• QB Rex Grossman - the Bears are smartly waiting to see if this is guy actually can be the full-time starter. 
• QB Tony Romo - apparently they are discussing an extension....
• QB Byron Leftwich - Not sure if the hope of a new contract will help Leftwich's pocket presence and mobility.
• QB Marc Bulger - he'll be franchised if they don't sign him prior to the start of the '07 season
• RB Chris Brown - he signed a one year deal after no other team stood up to sign him....
• RB Michael Turner - we all know what he can do behind LT, question is how would he fare getting 250+ carries behind an average OL?
• RB Vernand Morency - he'll be a restricted free agent, so this isn't the same as the guys above...plus if he's not motivated to secure the top spot in GB, then he's not worth the money anyway.
• RB Julius Jones - with Turner & Jones, you have two (possible - Jones needs to hit some performance metrics to void the final 2 years in his contract) seemingly featured back type guys after as unrestricted FA's in '08. 
• WR Devery Henderson - mostly a bust until he started averaging 2 catches for one 50+ TD reception per week, helping thousands of fantasy leaguers sneak out wins in the 2nd half of the '06 season
• WR Bernard Berrian - Unfortunately for Berrian he wasn't a FA this past off-season after surprising the fantasy & NFL world's with a strong '06 season.  Look for him to be the #1 receiving option for the Bears and cash in next off-season. 
• TE LJ Smith - always has huge potential, maybe in his walk year he'll become the top 5 TE everybody predicts who could be?
• TE Chris Cooley - not sure if anybody on the Redskins outside of C. Portis has any say in how much they see the ball, but Cooley should be a respectable choice this year regardless.

A fellow blogger, at Fantasy Football Goat wrote up their thoughts on this as well.   

Comments

[FFGoat]

Thanks for the promo PAFFL!

Now that you mention it Chris Brown is intriguing because he has some pride at stake and he's behind that solid Titans line. He Could go under the radar like Henry did last year.

[Beavercat]

All things being equal I believe the Titans will go with LenDale White but they clearly still need insurance and motivation for White thus the resigning of Brown. But if they truly believed in him, they wouldn't have benched him for most of last season...The wildcard in all this is Chris Henry but I find it hard to believe that a guy that struggled at Arizona would suddenly explode in the NFL - that said Willie Parker never started at UNC and look where he's at....

[Jibaholic]

I like Chris Henry to start by week 5.

[Beavercat]

Chris Henry could surprise...he's definitely in a good situation w/ fat & lazy LenDale White and Chris Brown in front of him being featured behind the NFL's version of Michael Jordan (Vince Young baby!)