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Jaguars ink Linder to 5 year extension


pwny

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On 8/3/2017 at 10:29 AM, iPwn said:

I think the biggest thing is if you’re going to make that kind of investment, it needs to have tangible results. It’s okay to spend that kind of money on the Center, but you also need to make sure the talent on either side is good enough to make the IOL unit work. Otherwise, what’s the point of spending that much on a Center if the group as a whole is still going to give you bottom 5 run blocking?

Yeah.  They've paid enough lipservice to the whole, "it's a results business".  At this point, if you're going to make this big of a splash at the position group...you need to make sure you're putting together the pieces to actually get "results", or you're just leaking Elite money away on a position group that isn't even good, much less Elite.

 

I think the other part of that, is you have to assess whether the player & position in question are going to be Elite contributors who can significantly elevate the play of those around them.  When you pay an Elite pass rusher...you're also paying for what that does to help the other End, the benefit it provides for DBs in coverage, etc.  If you're going to be paying a Center Elite money, i'd wanna make sure it's a guy who can help mediocre guards beside him look at least serviceable.

 

Maybe we just haven't even had "mediocre" guards beside him.  But ugh...

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8 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

Maybe we just haven't even had "mediocre" guards beside him.  But ugh...

If you got by the PFF rankings...

Watford was the worst graded of all 75 charted Guards who got at least 350 snaps (he had 788). His rating was 33.6 (out of a possible 100)
AJ Cann was the 47th rated Guard, at 65.8. He had 1,113 snaps.
Omameh was the 31st rated Guard, at 75.5. He had 454 snaps.

So yeah.... we may not even had guys playing there that should have been starting....

 

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3 hours ago, iPwn said:

If you got by the PFF rankings...

Watford was the worst graded of all 75 charted Guards who got at least 350 snaps (he had 788). His rating was 33.6 (out of a possible 100)
AJ Cann was the 47th rated Guard, at 65.8. He had 1,113 snaps.
Omameh was the 31st rated Guard, at 75.5. He had 454 snaps.

So yeah.... we may not even had guys playing there that should have been starting....

 

I'm not sure i put all that much blind faith in PFF in the first place, but how many of say, Cann's snaps were with Linder @ C?  And how did he grade in those?  Did he grade out better than 65.8?  'Cause i figure the highest paid center in the NFL ought to be able to drag some people up with him, if they're really worth it.

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1 minute ago, Tugboat said:

I'm not sure i put all that much blind faith in PFF in the first place, but how many of say, Cann's snaps were with Linder @ C?  And how did he grade in those?  Did he grade out better than 65.8?  'Cause i figure the highest paid center in the NFL ought to be able to drag some people up with him, if they're really worth it.

It was his first year at center after moving off RG. You don't give a young interior OL a huge deal based strictly on what he has done, but what he has done as well as what you expect in the future. I think it's fair to expect him to improve in some areas (even though he was very good last year) when he only slotted in at the position for one season, especially with how rough the guard spots were last year. 

I'd also like to see how he graded out the final 5-6 games after we changed things up on offense with Hackett...because our OL looked quite a bit better those final several weeks and the rushing statistics back that up.

Plus, Linder won't be the highest paid C for long. This is how it goes. A young ascending player is going to get a big time contract, but the market just keeps rising and he will start falling down the list as time goes on.

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42 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

It was his first year at center after moving off RG. You don't give a young interior OL a huge deal based strictly on what he has done, but what he has done as well as what you expect in the future. I think it's fair to expect him to improve in some areas (even though he was very good last year) when he only slotted in at the position for one season, especially with how rough the guard spots were last year. 

I'd also like to see how he graded out the final 5-6 games after we changed things up on offense with Hackett...because our OL looked quite a bit better those final several weeks and the rushing statistics back that up.

Plus, Linder won't be the highest paid C for long. This is how it goes. A young ascending player is going to get a big time contract, but the market just keeps rising and he will start falling down the list as time goes on.

That's true, he won't be the top C for very long.  And even now, it's presumably a misleading number because of front-loading based on our team's current cap abundance situation.  But i still don't think that's the kind of threshold you cross for just any ol' "good player" at a position.  And not without some concrete results to bank on...more than projection of what a guy might do.

 

But again, our team's long run of awfulness and consequent cap surplus situation obviously plays into this as well.  We've got money to spend, gotta spend it.

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3 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

That's true, he won't be the top C for very long.  And even now, it's presumably a misleading number because of front-loading based on our team's current cap abundance situation.  But i still don't think that's the kind of threshold you cross for just any ol' "good player" at a position.  And not without some concrete results to bank on...more than projection of what a guy might do.

 

But again, our team's long run of awfulness and consequent cap surplus situation obviously plays into this as well.  We've got money to spend, gotta spend it.

Thing is, according to most who dig in on tape/PFF (don't take what they say as gospel, but also worth mentioning) say he played as if he was a top 5 center this past year, or at least around that. Considering his youth, his flexibility, and the fact that it's fair to assume that he improves in some areas to some degree makes me think this contract is pretty solid. As you said, it was frontloaded due to loads of cap space (and we seem to always have among the league leaders while spending a good amount of money every FA) which also could be why the money is a bit higher than you'd think. 

I don't know, it's not a contract where you go, "What a steal", but it's not one I'm going to complain about personally either when you factor in all the things that has been stated about Linder (shift in positions, first year C last season, poor OG play, rankings elsewhere showing him as a top 5 C last year, etc). 

Hopefully all this is a moot point and the interior OL continues to run block well like after Hackett took over AND the pass blocking continues/improves what they did last year because I was quite surprised with how improved it was from the year prior. The OL definitely was not a reason for Bortles poor 2016.

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