I want Warner back as much as anyone, but not if it means we're financially wrecked for the next two years if he goes down from an injury (not out of the realm of reason given his past) or starts to rapidly decline with age (as ).
The top 5 quarterback salaries (total, not just cap value) and their ages are Ben Roethlisberger (27), JaMarcus Russell (24), Tony Romo (29), Alex Smith (25), Peyton Manning (33). That's an average of 10 years younger than Warner.
Don Banks makes this argument pretty clear....
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/don_banks/12/05/snap.judgments/
Having committed their future to Cunningham, the Vikings, in the spring of 1999, unsurprisingly traded Johnson -- who was only a 30-year-old, third-year starter in 1998 -- to Washington for a package of picks. Within four seasons, Johnson had won a Super Bowl ring as a starter for the 2002 Bucs, and today, at 40, he remains in the NFL, as a reserve quarterback in Dallas.
As for Cunningham, his follow-up to his career year featured a descent as rapid as his remarkable resurgence had been. In 1999, playing poorly and looking like a shell of the player he had been the previous season, he was benched at halftime of Minnesota's sixth game, with the Vikings falling to 2-4 and turning to veteran Jeff George as their starter.
It was said Cunningham lacked the guidance of Vikings offensive coordinator Brian Billick, who had been hired as Baltimore's head coach that January (Cunningham loses Billick, Warner loses Haley). Also missing was the relationship he had with Minnesota quarterback coach Chip Myers, who had died of a heart attack in February, and Johnson's helpful insights in the backup role. Cunningham never started another game for the Vikings; they released him in June 2000 after he refused to tear up his contract and play for little more than the veteran minimum of $440,000 that season. He played two more years, as a backup in Dallas (2000) and Baltimore (2001), and then retired.
So, bring him back but at $8-9m/season without incentives and up to $10m/season with reachable incentives (assuming he doesn't totally collapse or get injured they should be an easy reach for him) and up to $12-14m/season if he performs as well as he did last year.
