[Sylvanfan]

I do think one has to differentiate a bit though. Alex Smith was a bit more proven when he got his 15 million a season. He'd lead two teams to the playoffs, he had proven he was pretty durable, and strong enough mentally to come out of a pretty adverse situation that San Francisco had been. I think most would have pegged him as a guy who wasn't exactly JaMarcus Russell mentally. As a result he got more guaranteed money in his deal, the Chiefs are pretty much saddled to him for the next 3 years. Which isn't great, but it's not awful because he is a guy who can win in the league, and get you 3 sold out home games in December to appease a fan base who's happy to make the playoffs.

When Flacco got his money, he had a pretty good track record of starting a lot of consecutive games, winning them, and playing well in the playoffs.

Osweiller potentially is more of a Matt Flynn, Scott Mitchell, Matt Cassel story where he is a long time back up, get's to see the field with some decent pieces around him and has some success over a short period of time. So he likely won't be getting 15 million, I suspect more in the 8-9 range until he proves himself one way or another. Even with Kaepernick and Daulton, the dollars were high but the guarantee's not so much even with extended viewing time on them. San Francisco can walk away from Kapernick easily enough after this season and Cincinatti could do the same with Daulton.