Connor McGovern decision will be very telling

[AlexVanDyke]

Connor finished ranked 10th in centers in the league.  He is a good player and can very easily  be part of a winning/playoff caliber online. And we have him in the fold. 

BUT he is due to count $10+ MM to the cap. How does Douglas handle this? 
 

min my opinion we have had a bad habit of letting good productive  players walk thinking they are easily replaceable.  Many of them have been JAGs so they haven’t been terrible decisions but at a certain point, you have to keep your good players even if it means  paying a little more.  You have a top 10 C and good football player on the team.  Doses Douglas play fantasy metrics and negotiate him out of here or does he perhaps lay a bit of a cap premium this year to ensure this good player stays in the roster?

[Rhg1084]

Hope they extend him and Fant 

[Peteo]

We know the right side of the line needs the most work so I would keep him to get better at RG and or RT.

[heymangold]

https://overthecap.com/position/center/

 

he's the 10th highest paid.  i think he can stay at that number.  he played well last year.  If the o-line is going to be Fant/AVT/McG/Rookie/Becton, that has potential.

[section314]

6 minutes ago, heymangold said:

https://overthecap.com/position/center/

 

he's the 10th highest paid.  i think he can stay at that number.  he played well last year.  If the o-line is going to be Fant/AVT/McG/Rookie/Becton, that has potential.

Plus, the C is the captain of the line. Can't overstate that.

[BurntDice]

There’s no reason to get rid of him. Keep him so you don’t have another hole to fill 

[Sonny Werblin]

How McGovern is ranked by others is meaningless. There are only two evaluations of McGovern that matters. How does the coaching staff view his contributions on the field and in the locker room?  How does JD rate him in comparison to a drafted replacement? 

[derp]

I think the most prudent move is to hang on to him but draft or sign a potential replacement. Get somebody working in the system with Benton for a year and then if you feel good about him let McGovern walk, if not reassess. He'd be relatively cheap to tag, just a tick over his current salary, if needed.

I'd be surprised if a cut is on the table at all. I genuinely believe Douglas wants to work towards acquiring compensatory picks but he's not being wildly aggressive about it like Idzik was. He hasn't cut guys he could have and I think wanting to get to the point they hit free agency and can enter the compensatory formula is a part of that.

Layer in that McGovern is pretty fairly paid and the team has other holes to fill, and I can't see them letting him go. Plus he's got the versatility to play guard if needed.

[slimjasi]

keep and extend good players. 

No excuse for not keeping McGovern. 

[Sperm Edwards]

7 minutes ago, slimjasi said:

keep and extend good players. 

No excuse for not keeping McGovern. 

Yes and no. There's no rush to do it. What if they draft someone on day 2/3 in April and he's wow'ing them (even if he lacks McGovern's experience and might not be as good that first month)? 

I'm not in the camp of tossing him aside as though he's useless, but at the same time I wouldn't want to be locked into him for 2 more guaranteed seasons because we extended him when we didn't have to in Feb-March instead of waiting until after the draft (if not after the summer preseason is over).

McGovern's fine. He's not awesome, but he's not so terrible that the team should be looking into burning a top 10 (or any 1st round) pick as though center's one of the biggest and most urgent problems with the roster. They could have had the league's best center and would still have sucked in 2021.

[jamesr]

Continuity in the trenches >>>> saving on cap space

We need to address our depth at that position, but we already have a good starter.

[PepPep]

26 minutes ago, AlexVanDyke said:

Connor finished ranked 10th in centers in the league.  He is a good player and can very easily  be part of a winning/playoff caliber online. And we have him in the fold. 

BUT he is due to count $10+ MM to the cap. How does Douglas handle this? 
 

min my opinion we have had a bad habit of letting good productive  players walk thinking they are easily replaceable.  Many of them have been JAGs so they haven’t been terrible decisions but at a certain point, you have to keep your good players even if it means  paying a little more.  You have a top 10 C and good football player on the team.  Doses Douglas play fantasy metrics and negotiate him out of here or does he perhaps lay a bit of a cap premium this year to ensure this good player stays in the roster?

I don't think think there is much of a question regarding McGovern. I don't think JD cuts/trades him before the draft. And I don't think the Jets move on from him going into next season because of the 10mil cap him. If anything a contract re-negotiation would make more sense.  

I think the bigger question is regarding the future of Fant and Moses:

-Fant: Do you extend him now after injury but also after his best season to lock him up on a fair deal or risk losing him to FA or overpaying him? I would extend him now. But I have a feeling JD will want to see how the draft plays out and how he plays next year before extending him.

-Moses: If we learned anything this year it was that 3 good OTs is not a luxury but a necessity in the league. Moses is FA going on 31 but he was very solid on the right side. Does JD let him walk or attempt to resign him for depth? He will not be cheap. With Fant and Becton still under contract I expect he lets him walk and looks for depth elsewhere- draft? FA?

*D-Line: I know we are talking O-line and there are a lot of positions on this team that JD will need to make decisions about. BUT- this defensive line has multiple FA, QW coming up on a big payday, and a vastly underperforming player in Rankins who would save the Jets approx. 6mil if he were cut. Fat., Shep., Phillips are all Free Agents. JFM, Lawson, QW are the main building blocks with Huff, and Marshall as developmental players on the back end of the bench. JD has some tough decisions as far as how he addresses the depth and rotation of that D-line. The common conception is that he will draft Edge early to compliment Lawson. Does he let all of those FAs walk? Does he cut Rankins? I would.            

[slimjasi]

5 minutes ago, Sperm Edwards said:

Yes and no. There's no rush to do it. What if they draft someone on day 2/3 in April and he's wow'ing them (even if he lacks McGovern's experience and might not be as good that first month)? 

I'm not in the camp of tossing him aside as though he's useless, but at the same time I wouldn't want to be locked into him for 2 more guaranteed seasons because we extended him when we didn't have to in Feb-March instead of waiting until after the draft (if not after the summer preseason is over).

McGovern's fine. He's not awesome, but he's not so terrible that the team should be looking into burning a top 10 (or any 1st round) pick as though center's one of the biggest and most urgent problems with the roster. They could have had the league's best center and would still have sucked in 2021.

Oh, I'm definitely looking for day 2 depth at guard and center. You always want a playable backup center. (e.g. bad snap in the Bucs game on 3rd down right before the Zach Wilson sneak)

And I'm also fine waiting to extend him.  

But I do think he's a good player and the Jets are ABSOLUTELY NOT in a position to spend a premium draft pick on replacing a non-weakness. I want that talk to stop. 

[slats]

17 minutes ago, derp said:

He'd be relatively cheap to tag, just a tick over his current salary, if needed.

He would get tagged as an offensive lineman, not as strictly a center, and, as a result, would probably wind up getting the average of the top five paid LTs in the league. Or roughly $16.5M for the year. No one’s paying him that. 
 
I doubt he’s going anywhere this year, and the Jets would probably be wise to start talking extension now. If he gets another good guard on the other side of him this year, he’ll look even better. 

[GreenFish]

 Hope they extend him and Fant. How many FA’s have we signed who ended up checking out? These guys have gotten better as Jets. 

We can give Becton a shot at RT and get a RG in FA/Draft.

The OL is close to being finished, let’s not create unnecessary holes. 

[Barry McCockinner]

They could consider giving him an extension and lock him up for a few years. Aside from that, no reason to do anything IMO. Given his ability to play G & C at a respectable level he's a good guy to have on the roster and gives draft flexibility. You can draft a C or G and upgrade the o-line even if he was extended.

Cutting him to save cap space when we already have a ton would be stupid. 

[KRL]

His salary is "cheap" for an effective center, there is no decision to be made you keep him

[THE BARON]

 His $$$ is right in line with his performance.  If they can maintain that balance, keep him.

What I would most like to see with the line.  Use 4th overall pick on Ekwonu.  He is the best player in the draft and will be an every year pro bowler at LT.   Becton can play inside, try RT or vanish after his rookie contract is done.  What to do with Fant in the case that the Jets draft Ekwonu ??? RT ??? 

[section314]

28 minutes ago, KRL said:

His salary is "cheap" for an effective center, there is no decision to be made you keep him

Wait for Patterson from ND in 2023.

[AlexVanDyke]

1 hour ago, slimjasi said:

keep and extend good players. 

No excuse for not keeping McGovern. 

I agree but I wouldn’t say this organization has a great track record of this. Far from actually. 

[Larz]

What decision?

JD brought him in, he stays as he should 

[Gangrene]

26 minutes ago, THE BARON said:

 His $$$ is right in line with his performance.  If they can maintain that balance, keep him.

What I would most like to see with the line.  Use 4th overall pick on Ekwonu.  He is the best player in the draft and will be an every year pro bowler at LT.   Becton can play inside, try RT or vanish after his rookie contract is done.  What to do with Fant in the case that the Jets draft Ekwonu ??? RT ??? 

Put Ekwonu at right tackle for one year. Have Fant back up at left tackle until Mekhi Becton's next visit to the IR.

I know...people hate the idea of drafting another tackle on a team with no defense, constantly injured wide receivers and no legitimate TE.  I'd still draft  Ekwonu at four.

[David Harris]

1 hour ago, slimjasi said:

keep and extend good players. 

No excuse for not keeping McGovern. 

Yeah I don't want another hole to fill.  

He's fine. Fill out the rest of the roster.

[Jetsfan80]

38 minutes ago, KRL said:

His salary is "cheap" for an effective center, there is no decision to be made you keep him

Surprisingly, while he's the 10th-highest paid Center, if you move him to RG, he becomes the t-5th-highest paid RG and t-13th-highest paid G overall.  

I was expecting him to be much lower on the RG/G list if we were to end up moving him to RG.

[UntouchableCrew]

I don't think interior OL is a position where Douglas is letting go talented starters.

Similar to Fant I think there's a greater likelihood we extend him than move on.

[Maxman]

1 hour ago, AlexVanDyke said:

Connor finished ranked 10th in centers in the league.  He is a good player and can very easily  be part of a winning/playoff caliber online. And we have him in the fold. 

BUT he is due to count $10+ MM to the cap. How does Douglas handle this? 
 

min my opinion we have had a bad habit of letting good productive  players walk thinking they are easily replaceable.  Many of them have been JAGs so they haven’t been terrible decisions but at a certain point, you have to keep your good players even if it means  paying a little more.  You have a top 10 C and good football player on the team.  Doses Douglas play fantasy metrics and negotiate him out of here or does he perhaps lay a bit of a cap premium this year to ensure this good player stays in the roster?

They like Connor. 10 million isn't an issue for a player that they like.

[Sperm Edwards]

2 hours ago, PepPep said:

I don't think think there is much of a question regarding McGovern. I don't think JD cuts/trades him before the draft. And I don't think the Jets move on from him going into next season because of the 10mil cap him. If anything a contract re-negotiation would make more sense.  

I think the bigger question is regarding the future of Fant and Moses:

-Fant: Do you extend him now after injury but also after his best season to lock him up on a fair deal or risk losing him to FA or overpaying him? I would extend him now. But I have a feeling JD will want to see how the draft plays out and how he plays next year before extending him.

-Moses: If we learned anything this year it was that 3 good OTs is not a luxury but a necessity in the league. Moses is FA going on 31 but he was very solid on the right side. Does JD let him walk or attempt to resign him for depth? He will not be cheap. With Fant and Becton still under contract I expect he lets him walk and looks for depth elsewhere- draft? FA?

*D-Line: I know we are talking O-line and there are a lot of positions on this team that JD will need to make decisions about. BUT- this defensive line has multiple FA, QW coming up on a big payday, and a vastly underperforming player in Rankins who would save the Jets approx. 6mil if he were cut. Fat., Shep., Phillips are all Free Agents. JFM, Lawson, QW are the main building blocks with Huff, and Marshall as developmental players on the back end of the bench. JD has some tough decisions as far as how he addresses the depth and rotation of that D-line. The common conception is that he will draft Edge early to compliment Lawson. Does he let all of those FAs walk? Does he cut Rankins? I would.            

McGovern:

I'd be shocked if JD cut McGovern (never mind if he does it in March). Douglas has had too many FA failures (and too many non-center needs even with McGovern here) to be in a position to cut one of those few FAs of his that's looking good a year after it looked like a disaster. He's a multi-year veteran starter, on the right side of 30, with a year under his belt on this line.

Unless he's got future injury concerns I'm not aware of, the last thing Douglas is going to do is add to his list of needs and simultaneously rob himself of the high-pick resources with which to fill them. It's why I've been so intolerant of Linderbaum discussions. I think it's one of the dumbest, shortsighted things he could do, and would only be favorable in hindsight if Linderbaum is good and he drafted someone sucky instead. Never mind doing this with the idea of moving McGovern to guard. Guard is the more premium position compared to center, not the other way around, there are far more high-talent guards to draft than centers on top of that, and without burning such a ludicrously-high draft pick. That's also why no one else does it. 

Fant: 

Because he's a LT I think he has to at least begin discussions before the draft just to see where Fant's demands are at. In JD's favor it'd likewise be in Fant's interest to get something done, with more guaranteed money, rather than risk another ACL injury during the 2022 season and he ends up with (comparatively) nothing -- it's happened to him once, and nearly again at the end of this season, so it's not an overly-alarmist thing for Fant to heed. He'll turn 30 in June, and has exactly one career above-average season under his belt (albeit the most recent year), which itself ended up with him on IR. Yeah he only missed 1 game - plus the one he left early - as a result, but if the Jets were a playoff team he'd have missed that, too. So this shouldn't be some $20MM+/yr extension, and if Becton comes alive he'd have a lot of trade value to a suddenly desperate team. With Becton ending up missing the whole season, this seems like a good fit for both sides to do so.

Moses:

I've said multiple times I'm totally on board with overpaying Moses (at ~$6-8MM?) when what they really need is a RT2 (or borderline RT1/2) at $3MM. He's reliable; he's not too old to worry about hitting a wall; he's not too young that he'll be priced out of our RT needs-range; he's got a full season in this blocking scheme (like getting his lumps in already, though he's likely to see a new face to his left if he's starting again); and he'd eliminate any need to burn a high pick on another tackle because the team would already have 2 LT and 3 RT options among Fant, Becton, and Moses. Then JD picks up one more depth piece on day 3 or off the FA scrap heap and they're good to go at tackle. 

I'd save DL for another discussion, except that extensions for the above remove any serious need for OL in the top 10, or anywhere in round 1 even if they trade down some. 

[AlexVanDyke]

30 minutes ago, Larz said:

What decision?

JD brought him in, he stays as he should 

Joe can Tell him to take a pay cut or else? 

[Claymation]

1 hour ago, THE BARON said:

 His $$$ is right in line with his performance.  If they can maintain that balance, keep him.

What I would most like to see with the line.  Use 4th overall pick on Ekwonu.  He is the best player in the draft and will be an every year pro bowler at LT.   Becton can play inside, try RT or vanish after his rookie contract is done.  What to do with Fant in the case that the Jets draft Ekwonu ??? RT ??? 

Play Ekwonu at RG, with the intent to move him outside in '23.

[FidelioJet]

This is an absolute no brainer.   It is a very reasonable salary for a quality player on a team with very few quality players.

[Larz]

11 minutes ago, AlexVanDyke said:

Joe can Tell him to take a pay cut or else? 

JD signed him to that contract. Why is his contract suddenly an issue?

[CSNY]

Fant : to me should be extended he’s played extremely well has gotten better with still room to improve and he has earned the right to be starting LT regardless of Bectons draft status 

Moses: should be starting RT in camp and extended as well for 3 years with an escape after 2, but he should have to compete with Becton to retain his starter position. The question is does he really want to stay here. I think it will be telling if he does resign that he feels this team is trending up 

Becton: needs to earn a spot on the line at either RG or RT  in his case nothing should be handed to him because of his draft status 

And if the Jets can’t trade down and their most highly rated player is one of the offensive tackles then that is who they should draft especially with Becton being a huuuuge question and Moses’s advanced age and mileage on his body 

As numerous posters have stated continuity is a big factor in building a dominant o line and goes a long way to having a potent offense 

[GreenFish]

1 hour ago, THE BARON said:

 His $$$ is right in line with his performance.  If they can maintain that balance, keep him.

What I would most like to see with the line.  Use 4th overall pick on Ekwonu.  He is the best player in the draft and will be an every year pro bowler at LT.   Becton can play inside, try RT or vanish after his rookie contract is done.  What to do with Fant in the case that the Jets draft Ekwonu ??? RT ??? 

I cant see Becton playing guard successfully.

I like the idea of drafting Ekwonu. If we do, he’ll probably start at RG and then kick out to OT once Fant leaves or Becton officially bust.

If Becton can get his act together, a combo of Ekwonu and Becton would be tremendous for our running game. We’d be able run at will behind those two.

[peekskill68]

1 hour ago, slimjasi said:

Oh, I'm definitely looking for day 2 depth at guard and center. You always want a playable backup center. (e.g. bad snap in the Bucs game on 3rd down right before the Zach Wilson sneak)

And I'm also fine waiting to extend him.  

But I do think he's a good player and the Jets are ABSOLUTELY NOT in a position to spend a premium draft pick on replacing a non-weakness. I want that talk to stop. 

Over on Jet X, they ranked each positional group using PFF metrics.  The OL was ranked #1.  After QB, the worst ranked groups on the team were Linebacker, Cornerback and Tight End.  I would think JD is going to go hard addressing these groups likely in the middle rounds...

[WestCoastMole]

9 hours ago, Rhg1084 said:

Hope they extend him and Fant 

What he said ! Burning 1st and 2nd Round Draft picks to replace established starters so the team can get a bargain Rookie Contract shows the team is not interested in expanding the overall talent base, The talk about taking Linderbaum in the first round while far more pressing needs stand vacant is crazy. For O-Linemen the Jets should be using Rounds 5 through 7 and looking for a guy willing to play all O-Line positions in addition to Special Teams.