Leon deal done soon ?

4.5 per for Leon? No question this needs to get done.

 

TJ has 2 years left on his front-loaded contract. Ryan has already made it a point not to negotiate contracts with players that have multiple years left on their current deal. Jones collected most of the money on the deal, he has not outplayed that contract, and now he wants more. I don't even think he will be a New York Jet in 2010.

 

TJ is playing for his next contract this year, and that's going to be somewhere else. Because of his half-loads his first 4 seasons he can still make a decent argument for a 3 year deal somewhere if he has a good season this year. He'll probably be in the vicinity of 200 carries for the year and if he is very productive I expect somebody will give him a 3 year deal for maybe 13-14 million when he hits free agency. If the wheels fall off then they fall off and he probably retires.

If he makes a big stink in camp then the Jets probably hold onto him anyway and he goes down to 100 carries or less during the season if Greene can carry the rock. Then the Jets cut him in the offseason and he has the stink from the contract fight plus less production to show teams going into free agency. That turns into a paucity of real offers from other teams because if they offer him a cheap contract they'll figure that he's going to get stinky on them if he has a good year - and nobody is going to offer a 32 year old runningback coming off a contract controversy and a subpar season anything more than a cheap contract.

Basically TJ's one way to get a decent payday moving forward is to suck it up and show up and prove he's still good enough to warrant a good offer for 2010.

 

personally, i think the jets have already gotten the best they are going to get out of leon and should just offer him an increase for this year to say, 3 million and consider themselves fortunate. not a popular post with most here on this board i'm sure, but that's my thinking on leon. we've gotten his best and maybe he has one more great season in him that the jets take advantage of, but then, that's it.

small backs like leon don't have a long shelf life in the nfl, for the most part. leon being a small back relies on his speed and shiftiness. one leg injury and he'll never be the same.

looking at most of the top backs in the past, it seems like their first 4 years are their best before they start showing the wear and tear. after that, very few have remained explosive and still get the big game breaking plays they used to get.

leon getting a long term contract isn't in the jets best interests, from my point of view. big signing bonus and one major injury and it hurts the cap, since like most backs coming back from injury, are never the same explosive, dangerous threat they once were.

i say get one more great season if he has it without that major injury, and move on. like i said, not popular, but jmho!!

 

See, that works in theory, and of course injuries do happen, but Leon has not had an abundant amount of touches like the backs you are talking about. Aside from KRs, he has been used sparingly at best. Your first 4 years argument would work for me if he even got half the carries most worn-down backs will get.

 

i don't disagree with a lot of what your saying but, it could go my way of thinking also. if the jets do not over use him as most on this board complain he doesn't get enough touches, he may have a good 2 to 3 years left in him. if the jets try to get too much from him, he'll tire and that's when most injuries happen.

i just don't see the risk/reward factor (long term contract) being in leons favor, being he relies on speed and shiftiness. i see an injury coming in the next year or two and leon being leon no more. i don't want to see him injured, just the odds are he is due.

 

Oh God, Please let this deal get done soon. Leon is the fricken man and we really need to lock this up.

 

Yeah he has been used sparingly but I think he could be used a lot more and is capable of a lot more.

 

Cimini is a dope------------rarely is he correct-------I will believe Leon is close when I hear it on ESPN or FAN----enjoy your day all

 

Well maybe after you get the info you can E-mail or call Cimini so he can get the news as well:drunk:

 

Wilbert Montgomery, James Brooks, Charlie Garner, Barry Sanders, Priest Holmes, Warrick Dunn, Brian Westbrook and several others would all like to have a word with you about this blanket statement. The facts are that small backs don't get a lot of opportunity to actually work out of the backfield in the NFL but when they get the chance they're just as durable as the big guys who lug the rock. Making the other guy miss is just as good a longterm survival strategy as putting your shoulder down and making him hit you somewhere where it isn't likely to cripple you.

This is defining the case in a way that does not apply to Leon. he has not gotten a lot of carries in his years in the NFL and so he hasn't gotten worn down the way the top backs do. Look at Thomas Jones for an example of a back who didn't get worn out early and thus has some stuff still left to show as he passes the age where most backs are beat up and retired.

There are a few backs, Marshall Faulk and Priest Holmes coming to mind immediately, who were better in the mid to late stage of their career than they were early on - mainly because they either got a light workload at the start or something else important changed in the equation beside them and opened things up for them. Holmes got traded to KC and flourished in their open offense compared to the tight grinding game that Baltimore ran. Faulk got traded by the Colts the year that Manning arrived but he landed next to Kurt Warner in the widest open spread offense anybody had run for years. That turned him from a very good back into a truly great one and he was a first team all-pro three years running.

Why let the Jet's most explosive offensive player go? Do you like watching 9 yards and punt, with a couple of TD's a game and maybe a FG or two if the Jets get lucky? I want the Jets to feature Leon enough that the other team always has to worry about accounting for him. If they let him go then we'll spend the next 3 or 4 years watching a predictable grind-em-out offense that falls short when it runs into a good defense. The same gameplan that has kept the Jets on a yo-yo between just good enough and terrible since 1999.

 

Yes, I think this is fair. I really do not want Washington to miss any camp due to holdout. Obviously he can still show up if he is confident that a deal will be done. I really don't see him holding out as a driving force in negotiations. It really is more about what is fair market value for his skill set and contribution to the team.

 

Do any other 2nd or 3rd string RBs in the league make 4.5 million a year now?

 

Not many, but Leon is much more than a 2nd string RB.

 

Such as? I know he runs back kicks but teams put the lowest of the low rookies in to do that.

 

Underutilized for starters. He can score anytime he touches the ball, he is not a "fill the gap" backup runner. He is also an excellent receiver out of the backfield and can create matchup problems when on the field. He is playmaker, and the best weapon this team has really. Do you not think he will get that type of money on the open market?

 

I agree he is underutilized but I expect Greene will become the 1st or 2nd stringer which will make him the 3rd..unless they outright cut Jones.

 

Wow, you really expect him to get third string touches. Not according to Ryan.