Solid Decision

A Jets fan didn’t understand it, and asked me about it, like a lot of these things, it’s not what it seems.

As you know by now, the Jets gave Brian Winters a new four-year contract.

A big Jets fans told me he was outraged that the Jets gave Winters almost 8 million a year (four years, $29 million).

The fan thought that was too much money for a guard. I can understand the fan’s perspective. Bill Parcells never believed in spending a lot of money on guards. Neither does Bill Belichick now. They felt you can find guards who can do the job that will not cost you a lot of money.

But like so many of these deals, upon further review, the numbers of this contract are a little misleading.

Winters is getting $15 million guaranteed. That isn’t crazy money. Darrelle Revis got paid $17 million guaranteed this past season. Winters isn’t getting that much guaranteed money over four years.

So this contract isn’t a big deal.

And these are the kind of contract that to me, make sense, and I’d give these kind of deals out all day. Reasonable, fair deals, that don’t break the bank, and are win-win for both sides.

You see these kind of deals in New England a lot – solid money, but not insane cap destroying money. You work with us, we’ll work with you.

To John Idzik’s credit, you gave out a number of these kind of fair, but not crazy deals during his brief time with the Jets.

WR Eric Decker signed a five year, $36 million with $15 million guaranteed.

Breno Giacomini signed a four-year, $18,000,000 contract with $7 million guaranteed.

These of the kind of deals I would do all day. The Revis-Wilkerson deals not so much.

Winters deal is fair, but isn’t a cap-buster.

Winters quietly had a very solid season in 2016.

I felt in his first few years he struggled diagnosing stunts; wasn’t great on switch-off blocks.

This past season he was so much better. The light bulb came on.

“Coming into the NFL, I never played offensive guard. I was a tackle from a small conference,” Winters said. “(I) didn’t really know much about (playing guard), but I studied more and more. (I) moved over to the right side, where I felt a lot more comfortable. (I) learned from a lot of great people. Surrounded myself with Nick Mangold, D’Brickashaw (Ferguson). They’ve helped me. They kind of crafted me and helped me mold into the person I am. Just studying the game and learning from obviously mistakes, and experiences.”

He’s a quintessential NFL guard – perfect size (6-4, 320), very strong, tough and does a nice job of pulling.

The Jets need a whole roster of Brian Winters in 2017 – he keeps his mouth shut, works his tails off, is tough as boot leather and gives you everything he’s got on Sunday.

This was a solid move by the Jets.

After you train a guy for four years, what is the point of letting him walk when he finally reaches his potential and get’s it?

January 17, 2017

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