Outwardly, Shawne Merriman doesn't seem worried.
Excited, certainly. And anxious. The San Diego Chargers linebacker has been inactive for nearly 11 months, and he can't wait to test his surgically repaired left knee in competition.
"My main concern right now is getting back out on the field with the guys," he said as training camp began Monday.
But if Merriman has any concerns about his future, they're buried deep beneath his new Mohawk hairdo and his holdover "let's go cause havoc" attitude.
This is the last year of Merriman's initial five-year contract. With 39-1/2 sacks in three seasons followed by all but one game of 2008 on the sideline -- after last summer's attempt to play through a torn ligament blew up in his face -- this is the year that will determine his price and whether the Chargers pay it.
The club has made no move toward an extension -- that's not General Manager A.J. Smith's style, anyway -- and Merriman isn't campaigning for one.
"That stuff doesn't mean anything to me," he said. "It really doesn't. What means something to me is that I'm back on this field. I think if I go out there and do everything I need to do to prove that I'm deserving of whatever I deserve, it'll happen one way or another down the road.
"Everything I've done speaks for itself, so I really don't concentrate or put too much energy behind (worrying about) what I should get. I'm not pounding at anybody's door. You don't hear me in the media or standing in front of anybody's podium saying, Oh, I'm not paid yet, I want this amount of money, that amount of money. I'm not gonna do that.
"Point blank, when you sign a five-year deal you're here for five years, and you have to honor that."
That's a refreshing attitude, though it's easier to feel that way when you know that if you produce, somebody will pay you.
Smith faces hard decisions at season's end with Merriman, Philip Rivers, Marcus McNeill and Vincent Jackson all potential free agents.
But Merriman displayed his value last season in absentia. Without him, the Chargers' defense put almost no pressure on opposing quarterbacks, costing defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell his job at midseason.
With Merriman at 100 percent, everyone around him is better.
How close is he?
"He's moving great and has been for the last month," Chargers coach Norv Turner said. "His workouts have been outstanding. His strength is good. He's ready to get going."
Added Rivers: "He looks ready. He looks as good as he's looked since he's been here."
(We assume he wasn't talking about the Mohawk.)
If Merriman's physical status is TBA, his emotional status shouldn't be. He's got a lot of frustration to unleash. It built up every time there was a play to be made and he wasn't there to make it.
Being away "made me realize a lot of things," he said. "When it's the third quarter, everyone's tired and you're looking for the guy to make the play or the guy to say something to somebody else to get them motivated to make a play -- those are some of the things I realize people relied on me a lot for."
His goal, he said, is to get the defense to again be nasty, intense and physical.
If he can do that, the big plays will come. So will the big payday.
(Contact Jim Alexander at jalexander(at)PE.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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Must credit The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.
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