The football gods must be crazy: Wells gets $15 million

By Os Davis  |   Thursday, November 09, 2006  |  Comments( 4 )

Green Bay Packers
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Whether or not the football gods are crazy, Scott Wells' contract extension indicates that they definitely have a strange sense of timing.

Just two days after the center made "SportsCenter," post-game and evening-news "highlight" clips by bouncing a snap off Brett Favre's face mask on the count of two, the Pack announced a five-year, $15 million extension of the former seventh-rounder's contract.

Despite the fact that the center starts every play, the position may still well be the most anonymous in the game: Did you know that only seven "modern era" centers are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame? And that the last one to play is Steelers' legend Mike Webster? The role of the center in football is akin to that of the bar bouncer. If the establishment has a successful evening, the bouncer is barely noticed. If trouble arises, the biggest and toughest guy in the house may find himself getting attention of the unwanted variety.

The latter was the case with Wells on Sunday against the Buffalo Bills. Wells was ultimately charged with two fumbles, one over-snapped and the second under, both in Buffalo territory.

"There's no reason," said head coach Mike McCarthy in the post-game wrap, "especially at this point in the season to be having quarterback-center exchange problems."

Of course not. So the former seventh-round draft pick was "rewarded" with the $15 million.

The football gods have a strange sense of humor, one tickled by slapstick routines.

This is not to say that Mr. Wells may not deserve the accolades and his starting position. Short-term memory aside, the fact is that the Packers stand behind this guy and probably should.

"Scott Wells is as dependable and trustworthy a player as we've got on offense," Green Bay offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski was quoted as stating on the official Pack Web site. (We can even excuse the slight hyperbole.)

The 2006 season marks Wells' first at center full-time, having taken over the position from Mike Flanagan (Hey, wasn't he a pitcher with the Baltimore Orioles?), now of the Houston Texans.

As part of the rebuilding effort going on in Green Bay, Wells moved from more familiar guard and tackle spots to the center position. Though the Packer line was as maligned in the early part of the season as comparable atrocities on the Oakland Raiders, Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals, the young green-and-golders are showing improvement week to week as the staff has Brett Favre passing out of the shotgun more often.

Though officially the only numbers OLs really run up are fumbles, the most excellent Web site Football Outsiders (thanks for the heads up, PackerNation!) currently ranks the Green Bay line No. 2 overall in terms of the Outsiders' "Adjusted Line Yards" and "Defense-adjusted Value Over Average" stats. In fact, FO has GB as bettered only by the New York Giants in terms of sacks allowed. Indeed, the Packers have given up a mere 11 this season. If you take out the three suffered in the opening-day debacle against the Chicago Bears, the Titletown line has allowed a stingy eight for the year.

An interesting caveat to the above, however, is the Outsiders' stat showing that the Pack ranks only 16th in running through the middle and a heavy preference for the left side. Time will tell if Ahman Green starts relying on Wells' holes more and less on the off-tackle run.

Economically speaking, Packer bookkeepers apparently did the right thing by counting some of the massive raise due Wells (terms of Wells' original contract were never released, but the Associated Press reported the lineman's signing bonus was "only $22,250") against this year's salary cap, which still contains lots of wiggle room.

So Wells is in Wisconsin to stay and what was hopefully a bizarre anomaly will be put behind the snapper and the green Green Bay line. After all, this is one multi-million dollar star Cheeseheads don't want to read about in the newspaper.

The gods may not be crazy per se, but they are a little tweaked.

Keeping an eye on the bolstered Green Bay Packers O-line at RealFootball365.com
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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