The Jaguars make an early offseason surprise. They paid Julius Thomas $3 million on Friday. He’ll apparently be on their 2017 roster, and I didn’t see that coming – I figured they would admit their mistake an move on.
Thomas caught 12 TDs in each of his last two seasons in Denver, and Jacksonville signed him to a big contract, figuring they were getting something along the lines of another Rob Gronkowski or Jimmy Graham – or at least something not far behind those guys.
By not releasing Thomas on Friday, the $3 million bonus in his contract becomes guaranteed. It’s part of the five-year contract worth $46 million he signed after the 2014 season. They could have instead released him, replacing him in the draft or free agency. Per an article by a local TV station, Thomas is slated to make $7 million this year.
But Thomas has been a disaster. He’s had some injuries, and he hasn’t been particularly effective even when he’s been healthy and on the field. He’s not creating mismatch problems, he’s not threatening defenses downfield. His conditioning at times has appeared to be less than ideal (that’s a nice way of saying a guy’s out of shape).
It hasn’t happened at all, but the Jaguars are throwing good money after bad, hoping (apparently) that Thomas will somehow flip things around this year.
Prior to last year, John Elway chose not to pay Brock Osweiler, and that decision turned out to be a great one for the Broncos.
Backing up an additional year, Elway is now looking very astute for also choosing not to invest big money in Thomas.
Below are the stats for all tight ends who’ve seen at least 100 targets over the last two years. Of that group, Thomas ranks last in average yards per target. He’s caught only 76 of the 131 passes thrown his way, and they’ve resulted in only 736 yards. Some of that can perhaps be explained away to being saddled with erratic Blake Bortles, but truth is Thomas has underachieved.
Time will tell how it plays out, of course, but my guess is the Jaguars will regret not unloading Thomas.
TIGHT ENDS: YARDS PER TARGET (2015-16) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Player | Tgt | No | Yards | Avg/Tgt |
Rob Gronkowski | 158 | 97 | 1716 | 10.86 |
Travis Kelce | 220 | 157 | 2000 | 9.09 |
Jimmy Graham | 169 | 113 | 1528 | 9.04 |
Greg Olsen | 253 | 157 | 2177 | 8.60 |
Cameron Brate | 111 | 80 | 948 | 8.54 |
Zach Miller | 110 | 81 | 925 | 8.41 |
Tyler Eifert | 121 | 81 | 1009 | 8.34 |
Jordan Reed | 203 | 153 | 1638 | 8.07 |
Eric Ebron | 155 | 108 | 1248 | 8.05 |
Delanie Walker | 235 | 159 | 1888 | 8.03 |
Gary Barnidge | 207 | 134 | 1655 | 8.00 |
Jacob Tamme | 112 | 81 | 867 | 7.74 |
Zach Ertz | 218 | 153 | 1669 | 7.66 |
Ben Watson | 110 | 74 | 825 | 7.50 |
Martellus Bennett | 153 | 108 | 1140 | 7.45 |
Jason Witten | 199 | 146 | 1386 | 6.96 |
Jared Cook | 126 | 69 | 858 | 6.81 |
Coby Fleener | 165 | 104 | 1122 | 6.80 |
Clive Walford | 102 | 61 | 688 | 6.75 |
Antonio Gates | 178 | 109 | 1178 | 6.62 |
Charles Clay | 164 | 108 | 1080 | 6.59 |
Kyle Rudolph | 205 | 132 | 1335 | 6.51 |
Will Tye | 132 | 90 | 859 | 6.51 |
C.J. Fiedorowicz | 113 | 71 | 726 | 6.42 |
Ryan Griffin | 108 | 70 | 693 | 6.42 |
Lance Kendricks | 123 | 75 | 744 | 6.05 |
Dennis Pitta | 121 | 86 | 729 | 6.02 |
Richard Rodgers | 132 | 88 | 781 | 5.92 |
Julius Thomas | 131 | 76 | 736 | 5.62 |
—Ian Allan