This week, we asked Jacksonville Jaguars fans if they would have offered defensive end Travon Walker more or less than the $27.5 annual salary he signed for.
It was a close call, but over half of the respondents said they would’ve offered him less.
According to FanDuel Sportsbook, Walker has the 36th-lowest odds to win Defensive Player of the Year next season (+10000). Two of his teammates are listed ahead of him: Travis Hunter (+4500) and Josh Hines-Allen (+5000).
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Because Walker is the kind of player whose value will never quite shine through on the stat sheet, he has an uphill battle to prove that he’s “worth” paying $27.5 million per year. If fans are split about 50/50 on the price tag, though, that’s a pretty decent sign it was a fair deal.
“He’s somebody that by season’s end,” said general manager James Gladstone, “we wanted to align ourselves with beyond just the contract that we had at the time. His commitment to our football team, his commitment to his teammates, it seeps out of his soul. It was very easy to see what his piece to our puzzle meant. The scheme fit, the priorities we have on our defense, it just all really matches up in a real way. Glad he was able to earn himself that opportunity and know he’s going to take advantage of it. He doesn’t take it for granted. He’s the type of human being that you feel comfortable making a decision like that about. Really excited for really the evolution we’ll see moving forward with not only his usage, but that entire defensive front and those guys behind him as we get into year two of the system.”
Top comments from Wednesday’s post:
SaintJohnsJags
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Pretty fair deal for both sides. It’s nice to have a GM that knows what he is doing! Let’s see how the Strange and Washington deals play out.
JustinBlackmon14
It sounds like a lot of money, but market wise, it will probably be a fair amount.
mnkman322
Another poster mentioned lack of over 10 sack seasons, so I looked at the top 32 highest paid EDGEs based on career high sacks and percentage of career seasons over 10 sacks. The r^2 to APY were as high as 0.572 and would suggest the market value for a player with Travon’s production is an average of 22.7M.
So the Jaguars are over paying him by around 5M per year.
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jesusjagfan2009
Walker is a consistent producer and it would have cost us a lot more money to sign him at the end of the season. So it was good to get him locked in
JaxCommenterGuy
We probably ended up paying him less than it would have cost another team to pay him next year.
Hopefully he continues to improve and produce.
Novasheikh
I think the deal was pretty reasonable for his position. I doubt we would have been able to get someone that could have the same impact for that amount on the open market. Right now I agree with Gladstone trying to secure the younger cornerstones of the roster and then building/developing via the draft.
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JT_Jag
Pretty reasonable deal for both sides I think. Travon isn’t a truly elite pass rusher, but he is a starter-quality one, and he’s one of the best run defending edges in the NFL. And run defense is becoming more and more important in the NFL— rushing attempts and rush yardage have been increasing leaguewide over the last few years, the era of pass-only offenses is starting to end.
Jaguardian
Overpaid? Does Yogi take a 💩in Yellowstone Park? This is the state of the NFL, and quite frankly, getting more coin than deserved is as old as dirt. Let’s move forward.
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