Garrard gets lots of money

Jacksonville has extended the contract of quarterback David Garrard by signing him Monday to a seven-year, $60 million deal.

The agreement, according to media reports, includes $20 million in guaranteed money, including a $9 million upfront signing bonus.

Holy Hannah.

I like Garrard a lot. He’s got a ridiculous touchdown-to-interception ratio of 36 to 16 and last year alone tossed only three picks in 325 attempts. He’s relatively mobile.

And he seems like a good guy, which makes him easy to root for. He played the good soldier for years as a backup behind Byron Leftwich before receiving the opportunity to be the unquestioned starter last year.

But I think it’s hard to not have some reservations about this deal, which is short of, but in the same stratosphere as Tony Romo’s reported six-year, $67 million deal.

First, Garrard has never played more than 12 games in a season, primarily because he’s been a backup. But he also missed four last year because of injury. Second, do you reward a guy with a contract that big – the largest in Jaguars’ team history – for having one fantastic season?

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve already said I like Garrard and think he is a good player with the potentially to be borderline great. In this day and age of mediocre NFL starting quarterbacks I understand the Jaguars wouldn’t want to lose him.

But for a 30-year-old QB that has never thrown more than 325 passes or accumulated more than 2509 yards passing in a season, this contract was awfully aggressive.

At least the team has added Troy Williamson to his arsenal of weapons this season.