Dré Bly's not so bad after all

In today's comments section I acknowledged that the Broncos would have been wiser to go for free agent cornerback Nate Clements, late of the Buffalo Bills, than to trade for Dré Bly.

I was wrong.

The San Francisco 49ers signed Clements to an eight-year, $80 million contract (warning: bad pun in first sentence of link). As Len Pasquarelli wrote,

By virtually any standard used to assess NFL contracts by those in the industry, the contract makes Clements the highest-paid defensive player in league history.

I'll say. Quickly now, a few things:

• $80 million is a lot of money. It is also much more money than Clements will actually make-there's no way he'll go eight years without renegotiating or being cut. A more telling number is the $22 million he's guaranteed.
• That $22 million or, as I call it, enough cash for two-and-half PlayStation 3s, is still a lot of money.
• Nate Clements did not make last year's Pro Bowl.

Do the best cornerbacks always go to the Pro Bowl? Of course not-but the most famous ones usually do. Call me crazy, but I think historic contracts should go to historic players. That's not always how it works out, but for eighty large large, a player should be an All-Pro and sell tickets. I don't quite see Clements doing that.

I am glad the Broncos didn't commit $22-80 million to a No. 2 corner. (Do you think they knew the price would be that high? No wonder they were so quick to move on Bly!) The 49ers, on the other hand, do nothing but worry me here, though it's nice to see their current regime spending some money for once.

I worry for two reasons. First, nothing can slow a young team's ascent quite like handing a big contract to the wrong guy. I'm not saying Clements is a bad apple; but what if he gets injured? Or what if he plays well, but not much better than he has already? Local fans, consider the Denver Nuggets. Imagine how much better they would be if they hadn't vastly overpaid for the likes of Andre Miller, Kenyon Martin, and Nene. Moves like those separate the Nuggets of the world from the Spurs. (The Nuggets, of course, deserve a post of their own in short order, but that's a whole other depressing story.)

The other reason I worry is the kind of tension this can create on a team. Especially on a young team, where many players are still waiting on their first "real" contract. Hopefully for 49ers fans, it won't be a problem, but it very well could be on some level, even if it's the kind of thing the public never hears about.