10 Athletes Who Keep Getting New Jobs
You don't have to be a superstar to sustain a prosperous, lengthy career as a professional athlete. Plenty of guys are able to keep the wheels churning while bouncing from team to team, despite lackluster contributions.
Sports can be a funny place for a medley of reasons. That's why we've seen journeyman athletes who haven't produced at a high level in years gobble up paycheck after paycheck.
Exploring every major professional body of sports, this article's focus is on 10 athletes who fit that billing. Let's find out which names wound up on this list.
Mark Sanchez
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Mark Sanchez is a man of many talents. Finding ways to land in opportune situations is one of them.
Sanchez spent five years with the New York Jets. He was the team's first-round draft pick in 2009. Paired with a powerful defensive unit, Sanchez managed to play in two AFC Championship Games.
You'd think that would mean immense success for the signal-caller. Turns out that wasn't the case.
Sanchez completed 55.1 percent of his passes for 12,092 yards, 68 touchdowns and 69 interceptions. The team released him in 2014.
But there was Sanchez, able to find a new home. Chip Kelly's Philadelphia Eagles came knocking, and the former USC QB managed to cobble together a significant amount of minutes on the field. His two seasons in Philly resulted in a 4-6 record that coincided with 18 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.
Mediocre numbers in Philadelphia didn't stop Sanchez from landing with another new team. After Brock Osweiler signed a four-year, $72 million deal with the Houston Texans and Peyton Manning retired, the Denver Broncos traded for Sanchez.
Whether he wins the starting job or not remains to be seen. One thing we do know is that this veteran QB has made a career of finding opportunity in the NFL.
Alejandro De Aza
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Journeyman outfielder Alejandro De Aza signing a deal with the New York Mets this offseason means he's now played for five teams since 2009.
De Aza's longest tenure was with the Chicago White Sox. He wore those pinstripes for just over four years before he was dealt to the Baltimore Orioles in 2014.
His stay in Baltimore was brief, as the team shipped the outfielder off to the Boston Red Sox a year later.
Turns out that wouldn't be the end of his quest. The Sox decided to trade him to the San Francisco Giants in September of that year. De Aza wound up playing for three teams in one calendar year. That's pretty amazing.
As he begins another chapter with another club, this career .267 hitter will look to find a more permanent home with the Mets. But even if he gets traded again, all that proves is that if you can put the ball in play, there will always be a job out there for you.
Josh Smith
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Josh Smith spent nine seasons with the Atlanta Hawks before his NBA career turned into a traveling excursion.
Departing from Atlanta in 2013, Smith signed a four-year deal worth $54 million to play with the Detroit Pistons. The team waived him the following December, due to his immense struggles—Smith averaged 15.5 points and 6.9 rebounds per game on a dismal 41.3 field-goal percentage.
From that point on, Smith spent time with the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Clippers before being shipped off to the Rockets once again. His current player efficiency rating of 10.22 is the worst among active centers in the NBA—which is how he's ranked on ESPN.com.
Despite all of those issues and troubling stats, Smith still finds time to log 15.9 minutes per game, proving that sometimes sports can be a confusing thing.
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Matt Cassel
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All praise goes to Matt Cassel's agent. His client, the ex-New England Patriots quarterback, is a man who has shuffled around the NFL and collected paycheck after paycheck.
Cassel's journey has been scattered. He's enjoyed four seasons with the Patriots, four with the Kansas City Chiefs, two with the Minnesota Vikings and one with the Buffalo Bills before finishing it out in a Dallas Cowboys uniform.
In that time frame, the longtime QB has started 79 times and garnered mixed success.
Cassel's best year came in 2010 with the Chiefs. He threw for 3,116 yards, 27 touchdowns and seven interceptions that season. Since then, he's shuffled between being a starter and riding the bench.
Cassel is now taking snaps with the Tennessee Titans. He signed a one-year deal this offseason, per ESPN's Paul Kuharsky (h/t ESPN.com). It doesn't matter where he goes or what he's asked to do—this 33-year-old signal-caller continues to hone his craft.
Chris Young
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Chris Young's career is a testament to the namesake of this article. His 11 seasons in Major League Baseball won't blow away anyone from a production-based, statistical vantage point—despite coming up big for the New York Yankees at times in 2015.
Instead, Young has produced a career batting average of .235 to go with 977 hits and 133 stolen bases.
Starting in 2006, he became a big part of the Arizona Diamondbacks roster. Young spent seven seasons in the desert and logged 885 games under that moniker.
The years that followed his exit from Arizona have been busy. Young has played with the Oakland Athletics, Yankees, Mets and now, the Boston Red Sox.
At this stage in his career, he's more of a strategic hitter. Anthony DiComo of MLB.com discussed what that means when the Mets signed him back in 2013: "Young is known for his massive career platoon splits, slashing .262/.363/.474 versus left-handed pitching but only .225/.295/.415 against righties."
Smart stats like that explain why Young continues to find himself in fruitful situations.
Jeremy Lin
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Linsanity may be long gone, but Jeremy Lin was able to turn that period of time into a sustainable NBA career. The New York Knicks' choice to pass on re-signing Lin allowed the Houston Rockets to pounce on the guard in 2012.
His stay with Houston was mixed. Lin averaged 13 points and 5.2 assists per game in two seasons. Not bad on the surface. The problem was, his magical run with the Knicks unfairly weighted his expectations.
Lin's two-year stint with the Rockets transitioned to a brief stay in Los Angeles. Life as a Laker didn't pan out, so Lin took his talents to Charlotte.
That's where he stands today. Lin has become a durable role player who logs 26 minutes per game. With Linsanity firmly in the rear-view mirror, the veteran guard can now focus on contributing anywhere he possibly can.
Dominic Moore
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New York Rangers center Dominic Moore is well-traveled. From age 23 to 35, he's put his skates on and played for nine different teams.
Moore never was a gunner or a high-octane, volume scorer. The best season he had from a statistical standpoint was in 2010-11. That's when Moore dropped 18 goals and 14 assists with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Stats don't always tell the full story, and watching Moore play, you begin to understand that. He serves his purpose as a sound, effective center on the ice who's able to carry the back end of a squad.
Moore embodies every veteran out there who ricochets from team to team. He's a middle-of-the-road talent who can help when called upon.
Matt Schaub
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Matt Schaub went from being a developmental quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons to king of the pick-six in a matter of years.
Three initial seasons with the Falcons created a market for a then-25-year-old QB. He was traded to the Houston Texans in 2007, where he would immediately sign a six-year, $48 million deal.
Schaub's seven-year excursion in Texas wasn't half-bad. He won 46 games, lost 42, threw for 23,221 yards and helped guide the team to the playoffs twice.
But Schaub's NFL career took a turn for the worse when he started launching pick-sixes. ESPN's Phil Murphy highlighted how bad the problem has been, tweeting that in Schaub's last nine starts, he has tossed six pick-sixes compared to four touchdown passes.
That turnover hex turned Schaub's stable job with the Texans into a shaky, two-year jaunt with the Oakland Raiders and Baltimore Ravens.
Sometimes in life, things come full circle. Schaub will now enter the 2016 NFL season with the Atlanta Falcons, as Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun reported.
It just goes to show you, no matter how many pick-sixes he launches, Schaub will always have a place on an NFL roster.
Raymond Felton
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The life of a point guard in the NBA can be complicated. Those are the guys head coaches put in charge of running offensive schemes.
Raymond Felton has been in and out of that process ever since he left the University of North Carolina for the NBA in 2005.
Felton has enjoyed a lengthy career. He's spent time with five NBA teams—the latest being the Dallas Mavericks. His career averages of 12.4 points and six assists per game aren't awful. But those numbers have been trending downward over the past five seasons, turning this one-time starter into a backup option.
Felton's PER this season of 11.84, per ESPN.com, places him 58th out of 74 qualifying guards. Mediocrity at its finest.
But what do we know? He's still part of the Mavericks' nightly fabric, as he hits the court for 27.1 minutes per game. Cheers go out to Felton. Despite a low PER, it doesn't look like he's going anywhere anytime soon.
Edwin Jackson
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Edwin Jackson inking a deal with the Miami Marlins for the 2016 campaign is significant in one major way: This marks the 10th team Jackson has suited up for since he first debuted on a big league mound in 2003.
Jackson has become the living, breathing definition of a journeyman arm. He's spent years muddled in mediocrity—mediocrity that includes a National League-leading 18 losses in 2013 with the Chicago Cubs.
His career numbers reflect the previous statement. Jackson's record of 88-107 and his 4.58 ERA are as unfulfilling as they look.
Regardless, baseball clubs need proven arms, and Jackson provides that. As long as he's throwing the pill, he seems to habitually find a new ballpark he can call home every year.
All stats and information via Sports-Reference.com unless noted otherwise.
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