[Lefty Noob]

Jacksonville Jaguars RB Fred Taylor is unhappy with his contract, and he doesn't care who knows about it.

Ultimate Jaguars Newsroom: Fred Taylor vents about contract status 10/21/06
By MICHAEL C. WRIGHT, The Times-Union

Through five games this season, Taylor is eighth in the AFC in rushing (367 yards). He ranks No. 5 in career yardage (8,734 yards) among active running backs. Yet Taylor's rushing numbers have diminished somewhat this season, in part because of the emergence of rookie running back Maurice Drew.

"Let me say that I'm fine with the rotation system," Taylor said. "But I've got incentives [in my contract]. How can I reach them when you're cutting my playing time? I start thinking about little things like that when I see other guys around the league with the same numbers as me, but they don't have to earn their money through incentives."

Taylor's incentive-heavy contract includes him receiving $40,000 for each game he dresses, which cost him $200,000 last season because he missed five games. He also receives $140,000 for reaching 1,300 yards and another $140,000 for each 100 yards after that, up to 1,600.

"We're just asking to turn the incentives into real money," Taylor said. "It's killing me. That makes me think of wanting to be traded or to retire. It's one or the other. I guarantee that if Greg [Jones, who suffered a season-ending injury] was here, I would've been on the [trading] block."

Taylor points to his statistics over the past five years (5,013 yards) when explaining his desire for a new deal, saying "the numbers don't lie." From 2002 to 2006, Taylor ranks fifth among NFL running backs (behind Barber, LaDainian Tomlinson, Shaun Alexander and Clinton Portis) in carries of 10 or more yards (148 ). Yet he has missed seven games over that period while the other backs, combined, have missed the same amount of time.

"I'm a competitor, that's my nature," Taylor said. "But how many people do you know that will come out and get broke[n] up for free? My agent told me not to talk about this kind of stuff with the media. But that's just the way I feel.''

Taylor said his contract situation has been "eating" at him for more than a year. He likens the current situation in the Jags backfield - sharing carries with Drew - to the quarterback controversy involving Byron Leftwich and Mark Brunell back in 2003.

"They're waiting for my hourglass to run out then they'll just get rid of me," Taylor said. "Don't get me wrong, Maurice is a great player. But at the same time, this feels like Mark [Brunell] and Byron's [situation]. That's not to say that Byron hasn't proven that he deserves to be where he is, because he has."

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