Sheldon Richardson: 'I'm the odd man out' on the Jets defensive line
Richardson plays on a line with two other studs and knows the Jets might not be able to keep all three
Even in the NFL, where revenues are sky-high and the team salary cap pushes more than $150 million, you can't always afford to pay everybody. When you have multiple top-level players in a position group, sometimes it just gets too expensive to keep all of them around. That seems to be what's happening with the New York Jets' defensive line, and one of the members of that defensive line knows it.
For years, the Jets had their Sons of Anarchy along the defensive front -- Muhammad Wilkerson, Sheldon Richardson, and Damon Harrison. New York also drafted Leonard Williams, a stud defensive lineman from USC, in 2015. The Jets excelled with that foursome last year, but once the season ended, they let Harrison walk for a big contract with the New York Giants, while they gave Wilkerson a five-year, $86 million deal after first using their franchise tag on him.
This offseason, it's Richardson's turn to come up for a big-money contract. The Jets already picked up his fifth-year option for next season, but now he's eligible for an extension and he wants to get paid.
"I just want to play, and yeah, get paid my fair share," he said, per the New York Post. "You can't do this forever. You want to win Super Bowls and win games and stuff like that. But you also want to make sure you can take care of your family when it's all said and done and it's over with."
The Jets don't really have the cap room to give him a deal commensurate with his skills, though; and anyway, they still have Williams on hand to take up some of his role of his leaves. That's why his name was reportedly floated in trade talks earlier this week.
"Big business, bro," Richardson said, when asked his thoughts about possibly being moved, per the same Post article. "It happens. That's it. We've got three guys that play the same position. We're all effective. It's a surplus, so I'm the odd man out."
And he just might be.
















