Ryan Jensen made highest paid C by Tampa Bay

[Danand]

1 hour ago, wackywabbit said:

So unless I'm missing something, we've produced/developed the highest paid guard, right tackle, and center in NFL history in back to back to back offseasons.

While holding on to a franchise LT and the best RG of the era.

If you can't see that this organization develops offensive lineman at a clip or two above the norm, then you are incapable of acknowledging the things they do well. 

Yeah, and we did it over a span of 10 seasons, where especially in the later seasons we have had average to poor olines - both because of injuries, but also because we choose to develop new guys instead of keeping those we developed and play at a high level. That gives us the rollercoaster ride of an oline. YAY

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

I don't think Jensen being the highest paid C in the NFL means we develop some great Centers. He's not a great C, he was above-average for the one year he was a starter. Even Rick Wagner wasn't a dominant RT. Teams just massively overpay in FA, that's all. I do agree, though, that we are solid at developing starting OL.

[diamondbull424]

3 hours ago, sp6488 said:

Well said.  I'm "liked" out at the moment, but will need to circle back to this comment in a few hours.  Really hit the nail on the head.

Wow. I didn’t know that was a thing. I must be really stingy with my like button. Either that or you put out way too much.? 

[wackywabbit]

1 hour ago, Darth Pees said:

I don't think Jensen being the highest paid C in the NFL means we develop some great Centers. He's not a great C, he was above-average for the one year he was a starter. Even Rick Wagner wasn't a dominant RT. Teams just massively overpay in FA, that's all. I do agree, though, that we are solid at developing starting OL.

If we could develop Jensen/Wagner level wide receivers out of late round picks...

[diamondbull424]

2 hours ago, Danand said:

Yeah, and we did it over a span of 10 seasons, where especially in the later seasons we have had average to poor olines - both because of injuries, but also because we choose to develop new guys instead of keeping those we developed and play at a high level. That gives us the rollercoaster ride of an oline. YAY

Regardless, I think it plays an important part in the fact that when developing a team with a finite cap sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

Our ability to consistently develop OL allows us to be more stern in contract negotiations and also makes us more likely to avoid even bigger cap issues by tying too much of our cap in our OL.

Ideally we would be able to resign all these players, but it’s opportunity cost. Guys looking for huge deals that aren’t elite players, we have to make a business decision on. We have to allow them to leave so that we can stash more money in the positions, like WR, that we can’t develop so well and have to spend our additional moneys on.

I guarantee that if we develop a receiver finally, that guy is getting paid by us in a heartbeat. Same with why we made Flacco the highest paid quarterback, we couldn’t afford to let him go with how poorly we struggled to develop the QB position for years... that and him having arguably the best postseason of all time by a QB.??‍♀️

1 hour ago, Darth Pees said:

I don't think Jensen being the highest paid C in the NFL means we develop some great Centers. He's not a great C, he was above-average for the one year he was a starter. Even Rick Wagner wasn't a dominant RT. Teams just massively overpay in FA, that's all. I do agree, though, that we are solid at developing starting OL.

I wouldn’t say it’s about developing great players so much as developing solid players. We could go back to an undrafted player like Mike Flynn from back in the day as a solid player we developed all the way to Jensen. We may not always develop good players, but we do it at a solid enough clip that we can lean on and bank on our coaching and drafting ability to get the OL going sooner rather than later.

Teams overpay but those players generally do very well with their new teams, they even arguably become probowl players. We usually take day two picks and turn them into day one looking picks and day three/UDFA picks and turn them into day 2 type solid starters.

This also is the reason I think we should strongly consider taking a day two pick this year because the OL could use an injection to get it to another level and prepare for when Yanda leaves.

But I largely agree with everything you’re saying here though.

[EastsideEZ]

We are excellent at developing OLine and DLine talent... always have been... We are also very good at maximizing the talents of a Running back... and the overall development of linebackers which is mostly due to our ability to field decent Lines on both sides of the ball... Think about how overpaid our Dline  OLine and linebackers have been that got signed by teams in free agency... to be honest I think of all the teams in the league it’s FAs get the biggest Bucks on the open market... look at contracts for guys like Arthur Jones Paul Kruger and Pernell McPhee... nit to mention the Olinemen already mentioned which is why we lead the league in comp piccs by such a large margin 

[sp6488]

50 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Wow. I didn’t know that was a thing. I must be really stingy with my like button. Either that or you put out way too much.? 

Lol 

[drd23]

2 hours ago, diamondbull424 said:

Wow. I didn’t know that was a thing. I must be really stingy with my like button. Either that or you put out way too much.? 

New members have 0 likes, Members 10 likes and Vet members 20 likes per day. 

[coordinator0]

It was expected, but does this strike anybody else as odd? I mean I like Jensen and have for a little while now since he started getting spot starts at guard a couple of years ago... but highest paid center in the league? After one season starting there? Huh. Free agency is crazy man. Whatever, I think Jensen will at least be good for Tampa Bay so the money won't be wasted. Just odd. 

[diamondbull424]

14 minutes ago, coordinator0 said:

It was expected, but does this strike anybody else as odd? I mean I like Jensen and have for a little while now since he started getting spot starts at guard a couple of years ago... but highest paid center in the league? After one season starting there? Huh. Free agency is crazy man. Whatever, I think Jensen will at least be good for Tampa Bay so the money won't be wasted. Just odd. 

I wouldn’t say it’s odd. It’s all about supply and demand. Usually elite centers don’t hit free agency so teams are left with settling for “good” to “really good” options instead and hope they can become elite. Jensen fits the bill.

That said, I wouldn’t say it’s smart. He’s a one hit wonder at this point and it was a contract year. I wouldn’t spend record money on that. But then again, if you have it I suppose you’ve got to spend it somewhere.

[wackywabbit]

While it's true that he got paid off of one year, I remember being pretty optimistic about him stepping into the lineup. So, he's had flashes before when he's gotten on to the field. The physicality and strength at POA were apparent before this year. I have more questions about why he wasn't utilized more/earlier. Apparently he had a sleep anea issue that was hurting his perceived conditioning and maybe preventing him from getting on the field.

[sp6488]

21 minutes ago, wackywabbit said:

While it's true that he got paid off of one year, I remember being pretty optimistic about him stepping into the lineup. So, he's had flashes before when he's gotten on to the field. The physicality and strength at POA were apparent before this year. I have more questions about why he wasn't utilized more/earlier. Apparently he had a sleep anea issue that was hurting his perceived conditioning and maybe preventing him from getting on the field.

Here's a bit of a catch-22 (and I think a bit of a rabbit hole that you can get stuck in).  Is it credit to the FO/coaches for developing a 6th round pick into the highest paid C in the league OR is it a criticism as to why he wasn't playing sooner?  I tend to think it's the former, but these are the sort of logic pretzels one can find themselves in with these sorts of things.  Similar to the question about McKinnie in the SB year.  Were the coaches wrong to keep him out of the lineup until the end of the season OR were their methods instrumental in getting him to adequately prepare for games through practice?