Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
Okafor has been nothing resembling an 'outstanding value'.
He was mediocre, then hurt, then finally looking good...then hurt again.
Any fair interpretation of the Okafor deal has to put it at middling at best for this season (and I think I'm being generous there). He has essentially a 2 year, $11 million deal and was...fine. Sometimes. Other times he was actually pretty damn bad (and I still contend he bore a large share of responsibility for our early season struggles against the run - he was trash there).
For the first 8 weeks of the season he was somewhere between 'invisible' and 'lousy' except for the game against the Broncos where EVERYONE got right.
Then he missed 4 games.
So through 12 weeks he'd been an actual asset one time and in a game where I'm pretty sure I could've picked up a QB pressure. Then he finally looked genuinely good in Wk 13 against the Patriots and could very well have maintained that momentum but he got hurt again and will now be lost for the post-season.
I mean c'mon - how's that an 'outstanding value'?
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It’s an outstanding value bc of multiple reasons:
1. His cap hit is just south of $3 million. That is
cheap. There are rookies that are paid more than him. It’s basically a 1st rd rookie contract, which in the grand scheme of things is a bargain.
To put that into perspective, he is the 25th highest paid player at his position this year.
2. He replaced Justin Houston at 15% of the price. He was on track to have a close to similar season to Houston last season. Less than $3 million compared to $20 million. That was the goal this offseason right? Am I missing something here?
3. Again. 5 sacks in 10 games for less than $3 million along with a decent run stuffing player who struggled a bit early in a new scheme but has turned it on the last month. That’s great value and exactly what we should be doing.
But man you need to get this mindset out of your head that players needs to be playing outstanding games every week. There’s context here.
Like Frank Clark, you throw the Ravens game out of the window. We’ll no shit he didn’t pile up stays and struggled a bit in the running game. You know how hard it is for
any DE to sack Lamar Jackson or stop him in the open field running the ball? Go ahead and put your best DE out there and see how he does. There’s a reason Baltimore is good.
He’s had some struggles early no doubt. He also played a rookie QB in week 1 that they did not and could not prepare for. And Lamar Jackson. And he was out in Oakland.
I also don’t care about the “he destroyed Denver” argument. Your lovechild Khalil Mack got an All-pro award for destroying Denver for 5 sacks in 2015. He also embarrassed Donald Stephenson the week before for 2 sacks. So half his production came against scrubs.
Good players dominate scrubs and often pump stats that way. They are supposed to beat weak players.