Time to move on from Jamaal Charles? No way.
The other reason people bring up to move on from Charles is his contract, which may be the most team friendly for a superstar in the NFL. Let’s take a look at the top 10 highest cap hits for running backs in 2016 according to Spotrac:
- Marshawn Lynch- $11.5M (retired)
- Adrian Peterson- $11.0M
- Jonathan Stewart- $9.55M
- Doug Martin- $8M
- LeSean McCoy- $7.675M
- DeMarco Murray- $6M
- Lamar Miller- $5.5M
- Jamaal Charles- $5.31M
- Shane Vereen- $4.92M
- CJ Spiller/Darren Sproles- $4.5M
Outside of possibly Adrian Peterson (who is 30 himself and has a lot more wear and tear) is there any other running back you’d take on that list over Charles? For me there’s not one I’d feel comfortable paying the amount of money owed to them, including Peterson.
This doesn’t even take into account that there is zero dead money on the rest of Charles’ deal. If for some reason he came back and was a shell of himself the Chiefs could move on from him with no cap penalty. This is something that could be a factor come 2017 when Charles is 30 and his cap number rises to $7 million, but that’s a conversation for next year.
We truly won’t know how Jamaal Charles will be until we actually see him on the field. At some point one would have to think that the explosiveness that has made #25 one of the best running backs of this generation will start to deteriorate and rob us of such an electrifying playmaker, one that Chiefs fans have been cheering for since Charles first started touching the ball.
Before tearing his ACL he was showing he still had that ability and I have a really good feeling that he’s ready to show us it’s still there come September.