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Obviously, David Garrard is the biggest name healthy player out of a job right now. Here's an article on him and some other guys who surprisingly don't have a job.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/46116/a-month-in-quality-players-with-no-jobs

A month in, quality players with no jobs
October, 6, 2011
Oct 6
3:15
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By Paul Kuharsky
When Jacksonville cut him just before the season, the widespread presumption was that David Garrard would be quickly scooped up. But the former Jaguars quarterback remains out of work, reportedly unsatisfied with a scenario Miami recently presented.

Jacob Ford was a pretty effective situational pass rusher for the Titans, but didn’t rate as a fit for them as they changed their defense and went with bigger ends. When healthy, former Jaguar Vince Manuwai can be a top-flight run blocking guard. Like Garrard, they seemed like players who would land another job in relative short order.

But more than a month into the season, they and many others who may still be NFL-caliber players are floating around, jobless.

Why?

My theory is that when Team X spends a draft pick, money, time and resources to develop a player and ultimately decides he can no longer help, the rest of the league tends to think, “We’d rather develop our guy than take a chance on theirs considering they’ve given up on him.”

“There are a lot of good players out there,” Titans defensive end Dave Ball said. “Look at guys coming though for workout not getting picked up. [Safety] Chris Horton came though here and worked out. He was playing a big role for the Redskins, a big role, a couple years ago.

“It’s tough. When you get cut, it can take a while. I got cut and it took me a year plus to get back with somebody. I think it’s a big confidence shaker for teams looking to pick people up.”

Teams typically have realistic views of their own players, at least in time. Fans can tend to overvalue their own.

Ball said Ford is a good pass rusher who should definitely be on a team, and that it’s scary to look at the landscape of a league where there is not a spot for him.

As more and more teams devote themselves more and more to building through the draft, they seem to be less and less interested in pulling in an outsider during the season if they don’t have a hole created by injury.

Surely former Seahawks linebacker Lofa Tatupu expected to be working again by now.

For a lot of No. 1 picks it’s different. Aaron Maybin, a defensive end drafted in the first round by Buffalo in 2009 but cut after two seasons, was of interest to more than one team and got signed by the Jets. The Colts scooped up former Atlanta No. 1 pick Jamaal Anderson and are getting good run-down work from him. Linebacker Ernie Sims was a similar acquisition, but he’s been hurt.

“There are a lot of people who will take that first-rounder, anticipating that they may not be able to get a full 60 minutes out of him, but maybe they can get two quarters of No. 1 draft pick play out of him, kind of using him in a role,” Colts coach Jim Caldwell said. “There are some teams that do a great job of that, take guys who have been No. 1s, plug them in and say, ‘All I need is a quarter or two quarters’ or ‘All I need is third down from this guy’ and try to utilize him that way.”

As for lesser picks who are still floating out there, Titans general manager Mike Reinfeldt said he thinks it’s still early and a lot of those guys will wind up playing.

The lockout contributed to less opportunity, too. Reinfeldt said the draft pick a team might have given up on after spending the spring and summer with him got the benefit of the doubt as teams needed more time to evaluate.

“It was all so quick,” Reinfeldt said. “You didn’t get the opportunity to evaluate them the way you did in the past, so some made it because of who they were. This year was so compressed, I think some rookies made it just because the period of inspection and scrutiny wasn’t what it usually was. And that came at the expense of those other guys.”

Draft picks are such a premium commodity. Teams love to gather them, hate to part with them, believe their scouting system can find them quality with each one.

Linebacker Barrett Ruud moved from the Buccaneers to the Titans as a free agent this season. He sees building your own guys as the central theme when it comes to opportunity these days.

“Teams want to develop the guy they brought up,” Ruud said. “Sometimes, you’ve got a young guy and maybe it’s his first chance to start a game. You bring in someone to start in front of him and his confidence is shattered.

“I don’t think it’s a reflection so much of how somebody got cut. I think it’s more a reflection of a team wanting to develop a guy they brought in.”

Why in the world does Chris Horton not have a job? He was a great up-and-comer a couple years ago, and now nothing? The guy is 26 or 27... should be in the prime of his career. I wonder what happened.

I think this is going to become a trend.

The vets screwed the rooks with the new CBA...but it's the waning vets who will get the shaft.

The rooks will get a chance to show themselves as they are waaaaaaaaay cheaper now than the vets.

Unintended consequences strikes again.

Chris Horton????? hes only 26!!!! and we need a safety

Lofa Tatupu??? am i missing something here? this guy is a PLAYMAKER! why did we even give gocong that money, when we could of had this guy!!!

Tatupu's is a huge health risk.

if the injury was pre-existing and he had to have it done, then it was BS on JAX for cutting him and I am surprised he is not having the union go after them.

but, the other option is that this injury could have been something that has just been nagging him a little bit and he decided to take care of it since it didn't look like he was going to get a starting gig this year (so he could be 100% for Free Agency in 2012)