In praise of Jags GM Trent Baalke
Because he's not with the 49ers anymore. WTF is he doing...?
Monday and Tuesday of this week are what only the NFL could label the “legal tampering” window - meaning free agents are allowed to talk to teams and work out the logistics of a contract, even though Wednesday is the first day those contracts can be legal. This is patently stupid, but … it’s not nearly as stupid as what some teams do IN that window.
Take, for example, Jaguars GM Trent Baalke (who was formerly in that role in the 49ers organization until he ran Jim Harbaugh out of town, signed injured and shady players and leaked constantly to the press, undermining the entire team - and no, I don’t miss him, why do you ask?). The Jaguars have historically been one of the worst teams in the league. It’s even a running joke on the wonderful show The Good Place.
They entered the offseason with a lot of cap space, and a young quarterback without a lot of weapons. The nice thing about football these days is that wide receivers are everywhere, especially the draft (where you can get them for cheap!), and somehow … the Jaguars decided to do this:
Sign WR Christian Kirk to a 4-year, $84MM contract - which is probably more like 2-years, $37MM in guarantees. That’s about $18.5MM a year for a guy who has never had 1,000 yards in a season and only has four 100-yard games in his career.
Christian Kirk waves hello to a big, big bucket of cash. Sign WR Zay Jones to a (deep breath) 3-year, $24MM contract. Jones signed a $2.5MM one year “prove it” deal with the Raiders last season and didn’t really prove much of anything. And you overpay to sign him on the first possible day? Jones is exactly the kind of receiver you can find in the draft. This is disgraceful.
This is Zay Jones, in case you were wondering. Sign TE/WR Evan Engram to a one year, $9MM contract. I’m a bit torn here because Engram does have all the athleticism you can possibly hope for - and rumors are that they’re going to play him more as a giant slot receiver, not as a TE. We will see. I can’t think of a player who has fallen short of expectations so many times. (And yes, I am mostly talking about fantasy football. He’s on my “if I draft him again, consider it a public cry for help” list.)
He did .. not catch this pass. Sign OG Brandon Scherff to a 3-year, $49.5MM contract with $30MM guaranteed. Now, Scherff is a very talented guard and was taken 6th overall. But he’s 30 now, and has been injured (checks notes) a LOT. He’s now the highest paid interior lineman in the NFL, per Sheil Kapadia at The Athletic. And the thing is - when you leap out to be the first guy to pay, you often notice other really talented players at the same position going for considerably cheaper. Wouldn’t Laken Tomlinson, Austin Corbett or Alex Cappa be a better allocation of funds?
Contract amounts are at least partially a mirage, as what matters is the guaranteed money and in a lot of these we don’t know those details yet. But just look at the wide receiver room now for Jacksonville. It has Marvin Jones, Christian Kirk and Zay Jones, while they are shopping Laviska Shenault and let D.J. Chark go to sign with the Lions. We are banking on Trevor Lawrence realizing his potential throwing to those three guys and Engram?
Really?
I honestly think the Lions WR corps of Chark, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Josh Reynolds is at least as good as that, and costs a hell of a lot less - for another team that’s rebuilding and shouldn’t put themselves in financial distress while they sort things out.
Reactions were pretty excellent to this move by the Jaguars.
