While Packers rumors were littered last week with teams making a run at recently re-signed defensive tackle B.J. Raji, the Green Bay Packers actually retained the coveted defensive linemen with a mere pittance in guaranteed money.
According to Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, the one-year, $4 million contract that B.J. Raji signed to stay with the Packers only contains $500,000 in guaranteed money--
"It was probably a slight bit of humility that had to be accepted," McGinn quotes an anonymous NFL personnel director as saying Tuesday night. "That's what the market was telling him he was worth. I'm sure he would have taken a better deal if it existed."
B.J. Raji only tested the free agent market for the equivalent of three full business days, before returning to the Green Bay Packers' original offer. Just last season, Raji and his representation turned down a multi-year extension from the Packers in the neighborhood of $8 million a year with almost $20 million of the proposed deal to be guaranteed.
Several sources note inefficiencies in Raji's game and attitude problems as reasons why the market never truly opened up to him. The fact that he has gone without a sack since Week 11 of the 2011 season didn't help either.
McGinn puts the Packers' defensive tackle's humbling return to Lambeau in perspective--"Among the 15 defensive tackles who have signed contracts since the start of the free-agent signing period March 11, Raji ranks 13th in guaranteed money."
Not quite the deal Raji and his representatives were angling for, but at this point, it looks as if the 27-year old defensive tackle will take it.
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