While the move has not been officially announced by the team, ESPN’s Adam Caplan reports the Philadelphia Eagles are expected to release Todd Herremans. The news begs the question of who will be lining up at right guard come September.
Some observers have already leaped to the conclusion the Eagles will look to free agency for a replacement, which is certainly one possibility. No doubt the club will also add an interior lineman in the draft, as left guard Evan Mathis turns 34 in November and offensive-line depth is an issue in general—although there’s no guarantee a rookie would start.
There is another avenue. The Eagles may have options to replace Herremans already on the roster.
The question is whether they are any good.
They may not have to be. It’s plausible the Eagles viewed the 32-year-old Herremans as a broken-down athlete in decline who isn’t much better than the replacement-level talent beneath him on the depth chart. And with a salary cap hit at $5.2 million in 2015, according to Spotrac, it just may be worth rolling the dice that one of these backups can fill his shoes.
After all, Herremans has missed the final eight games in two of the past three seasons due to injuries. And granted, the line was in a constant state of flux around him in 2014 even when he was healthy, Herremans’ performance did not grade out very well by metrics site Pro Football Focus, earning a cumulative score of minus-12.5.
By comparison, Andrew Gardner appeared in 14 games, including six starts at right guard, receiving a minus-6.4 for the entire body of work. Obviously, any negative score isn’t good, but the fact that Gardner—a journeyman who was out of the league at one point—outperformed Herremans by any measure is telling.
This doesn’t necessarily mean Gardner is the guy the Eagles have tabbed to take over for Herremans, either. Despite filling in the final six weeks of the season, he may not even be the most likely choice.
Just last offseason, the Eagles signed Allen Barbre to a three-year contract extension, indicating they felt a reserve lineman was important to the club’s future. Is it a coincidence there is a vacancy a year later?
Could be. Barbre had filled in capably during a handful of relief appearances in 2013. The three-year, $4.35 million deal he signed didn’t seem indicative of anything beyond well-compensated depth at the time.
Perhaps it was also done to provide a little insurance in the event the team decided to move on from one of its starters.
If you forgot that Barbre was even on the roster, that’s understandable. He was filling in at right tackle for a suspended Lane Johnson when he suffered a season-ending ankle injury on opening day in 2014 and hasn’t been heard from since.
This is all just thinking out loud, too. Barbre is another journeyman who also spent a year out of the league. He has eight career starts in an NFL career that spans eight years, and most of those didn’t go very well. Yet by definition, Barbre is an option to replace Herremans.
Then again, by definition, so are Matt Tobin and Dennis Kelly, both of whom spent time at right guard in 2014, in that all of these players are still on the roster. Neither Tobin nor Kelly was very effective, though, so they seem unlikely choices, as does Josh Andrews, an undrafted free agent with no NFL experience who was signed to a futures contract at season’s end.
Perhaps the best bet really is for Philadelphia to go out and sign a proven replacement in free agency. Of course, only $2.8 million of Herremans’ cap hit was in actual savings—the other $2.4 million is dead money—which means the Eagles could wind up allocating a lot of money on a right guard in 2015 should they go that route.
That’s a curious decision to arrive at when, despite the metrics, Herremans was considered an adequate solution when healthy.
Again, the draft could be in play as well, and while a rookie is no guarantee to start, it seems the Eagles have no shortage of temporary fill-ins to fall back on. Maybe that’s the plan—let a rookie battle it out with either Gardner or Barbre, veterans who could hold their own for a few weeks, possibly one season if necessary.
With free agency set to open on March 10, we’ll find out soon enough if the Birds intend to spend money to fill the hole they created along the offensive line or if they’re going to have to get creative.
from Bleacher Report http://ift.tt/1vEUQfQ
via IFTTT February 26, 2015 at 10:32PM
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