Look at the Green Bay Packers pretending they might actually sign a free agent again! The latest player who’s set to visit the Packers and then be insulted by either their low or non-existent contract offer is safety Michael Huff.
He’ll soon join the likes of Chris Canty and Steven Jackson, who flirted with the Packers and then actually got real contract offers and signed elsewhere.
Huff was released by the Raiders earlier this month in a salary cap move. He started all 16 games for the team in 2012, when he had 56 tackles and two interceptions. Although he’s primarily a safety, Huff played quite a bit of cornerback last season because of injuries.
The Texas product’s best season came in 2010, when he had 94 tackles, four sacks, three interceptions and three forced fumbles. The Packers, meanwhile, are the picture of inexperience at safety. Next to Morgan Burnett they currently have M.D. Jennings and Jerron McMillian. Jennings, who isn’t much of a hitter, is entering his third season and McMillian, who needs to improve in coverage, his second.
The Dallas Cowboys were expected to sign Huff, but they’re waiting on a contract extension for Tony Romo to be finalized so they can free up the necessary cap room. The Cowboys are currently only about $100,000 below the cap.
Huff isn’t waiting around. He has a visit with Baltimore scheduled followed by a stop in Green Bay.
If the Packers have any chance of making your pipe dream of signing a free agent come true, there’s this. They have a lot more salary cap space available than both Dallas and Baltimore. The Ravens are approximately $7 million under the cap and around $5 million of that will go to draft picks.
The Packers are more than $20 million below the cap.
History tells us Huff will have to come real cheap for the Packers to do anything though.
Right now, they’d probably have to pay him a little more than $2 million per season to beat out Baltimore. However, if the Cowboys get the Romo deal done and gain some cap room, that could change the landscape dramatically.
One more thing. Huff wore No. 24 in Oakland. That’s the same number Charles Woodson wore in Oakland before he signed with the Packers as a free agent. Huff is no Woodson, but that still seemed appropriate to point out.