Did Seahawks overpay for Dre'Mont Jones?

What is it worth for Pete Carroll to get "dynamic" players to his defensive line? Whatever it costs: Seaside Joe 1555

I am going to start this article by addressing any fans who hate the premise of this article as written in the headline because then I can ascertain FOR CERTAIN who went straight into the comments to express disagreement and displeasure:

#1, a question headline is most often a theory and not a conclusion

The answer to whether the Seahawks overpaid for Jones may be “No” and that’s what we’re here to find out. It’s important for writers like myself to question everything and to not enter every Seattle-related situation with the belief that “If the Seahawks did it, then it must be right.”

Certainly, the Seahawks gave Dre’Mont Jones a three-year, $51 million contract in part because some of their decisions along the defensive line prior to 2023 did not go as planned. Said Pete Carroll before free agency:

"We are going to have to become more dynamic up front, we have to," Carroll said. "We've kind of been in the dame (sic) mode, we have to get more production out of the guys, they have to be more of a factor. We need to make the position really competitive, if we can.”

I’m assuming that John Boyle meant “same mode” but I’m not sure. In either case, Seattle went on to part ways with Al Woods, Poona Ford, Quinton Jefferson, L.J. Collier, and Shelby Harris. The Seahawks did not draft or come to agreements with any of those players under the impression that they would be out to replace them in 2023, so whether Jones’ contract is a win or a loss has yet to be decided.

And we won’t get the answer today obviously. Today’s article is based on something I read on a Broncos blog prior to free agency, which I will address shortly, and is not meant to be a flat out prediction…only an assessment of whether Seattle went above and beyond market value to secure the “dynamism” upfront that he set out to acquire at any cost.

#2, an “overpay” doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative

I know it seems counterintuitive to say that a team can “over-pay” while still paying the right price, but I’ve always felt that the NFL salary cap and contract figures get massively overrated in the media. Yes, you would hope that your favorite team does everything magnificently correct and steals candy from the rest of the league at every turn—win Super Bowls AND make the best draft picks AND sign the best players in free agency AND win every trade AND hires the best coaches AND never gets injured AND doesn’t charge fans for tickets or food or drinks…the best of all your wildest fantasies—but ultimately only one of those goals matters to me.

Win Super Bowls.

The Rams completely fucked up their salary cap and their draft picks and their stock of players to hand over the future to, but they did win the Super Bowl. To live in the present moment is certainly to enjoy Seattle’s considerable advantages over L.A. in 2023, but by almost any measure the Sean McVay Rams since 2017 have been much more successful than Pete’s Seahawks since 2015 and this despite the fact that general manager Les Snead made a ton of stupid decisions.

So, don’t let emotion take over if you see even a question that ponders if the Seattle Seahawks overpaid their top free agent signing because a) maybe they didn’t and b) maybe they did and that’s fine.

Let’s dive into the numbers.

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Why the Denver Broncos didn’t franchise tag Dre’Mont Jones

The number one reason to think that maybe—just maybe—the Seahawks overpaid Dre’Mont Jones is the fact that they paid him almost as much as the franchise tag, and in fact went a little above the figure in guaranteed money, but the Broncos decided to let him leave in free agency.

Seattle gave Jones $51 million total, $17.1 million per season, $30 million in total guarantees, and $23 million guaranteed at signing: $20 million signing bonus and a fully-guaranteed $3 million salary in 2023.

The franchise tag that Denver opted to leave on the table: $19.7 million.

Of course, this is a lot of money and not every team would just be able to afford a $20 million cap hit to a 5-tech defensive end. However, this same Broncos team turned around and gave Zach Allen, in many ways a similar player (and one who the Seahawks reportedly also wanted), a three-year, $45.75 million contract with $32 million fully guaranteed.

If Jones would sign the $51 million contract with Seattle, surely there’s a universe in which he would sign a similarly sized contract with Denver prior to free agency but the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement during the 2022 season (talks broke down) and then the Broncos ultimately decided to go in another direction with Allen.

Part of the reason for that could just be that new head coach Sean Payton had no particular relationship with Jones and felt no attachment, while new defensive coordinator Vance Joseph had coached Allen for four years in Arizona. That side of it can’t be dismissed: Joseph had an opportunity to bring his own defensive end, even if he is very similar to the player who the Broncos already had.

Maybe the Broncos would have tagged or extended Dre’Mont Jones if there was no pipeline to Zach Allen, or if the team hadn’t fired Nathaniel Hackett and his staff, but we’ll never quite know. What we do know is that Allen carries a $6 million cap hit in 2023 and $19 million in 2024, while Jones sits at $10 million for 2023 and $18.1 million in 2024.

Should Seattle feel like, “Oh no, we’ve made a huge mistake,” they are able to get out of the deal with some savings ($4.8 million) after one season.

Sunday follow-up article: Why Geno Smith’s 2023 season could be as productive as Matt Ryan’s MVP campaign

Why Broncos may have hesitated to keep Jones

The aforementioned Broncos blogger, Lance Sanderson of Mile High Huddle, had this to say on February 16th:

With Jones primarily playing as a 5-technique defensive end in the Broncos hybrid front under former defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero, Jones figures to have a franchise tag value of $19.7 million for the 2023 season, which is the average of the top-5 salaries at that position.

Jones has blossomed into a spectacular player over the past year and a half, but according to Spotrac, he has a market value of $7.2 million on an average per year basis. Given the tag number for Jones, that is not going to be nearly enough to retain his services.

Only $7.2 million? Without a doubt, if there’s any truth to that, then $17.1 million would be a massive overpay. However, whatever link to Spotrac that was at the time, it seeems to have been updated to now reflect the type of contract that Dre’Mont Jones actually got from the Seahawks. A contract size that is not at all surprising given that Albert Breer reported before free agency that Jones was probably going to get something near his franchise tag anyway:

Breer talked about how the talent on the market this offseason features “a few good interior defensive line options, specifically noting that Jones, as well Philadelphia free agent Javon Hargrave, “probably won’t get $20 million per year, but they might not be far off.”

The 49ers gave Hargrave a contract that pays him $21 million per season and $40 million fully guaranteed, so compared to that, Seattle got a major discount with Jones with $23 million fully guaranteed. Especially if Jones can maintain his level of pass rush and pocket disruption that he had over the past two seasons in Denver. Here are some numbers shared by Sanderson:

Jones finished the year tied for 12th with seven sacks, sixth in hurries with 33, and 11th in pressures with 45. His 6.1 pass rush productivity percentage — which is formulated by adding all combined pressures, hurries, and sacks and dividing them by the number of snaps — was good for 10th in the league, and his 14.6 pass rush win rate percentage landed him at ninth overall.

What makes these numbers even more spectacular is the fact that Jones only played in 13 games last season, so other interior pass rushers had more opportunities to gather statistics, and they couldn't push his performance out of the top-15 in several categories.

If you limit the field down to the games that Jones played in (Weeks 1-14) as well as place a minimum of 243 snaps played, his numbers land right at the top five. His seven sacks were tied for sixth. His 33 pressures were the second-most, behind only Quinnen Williams, while Jones' 45 pressures were tied for fifth-most.

According to Pro-Football-Reference, Jones had at least one pressure in each of his last nine games, and 11 of 13 overall, although he did have just a single pressure in eight of those contests and it seemed like his most productive games came with Bradley Chubb next to him.

But creating pressure as a 5-tech defensive end doesn’t seem to be a concern for NFL teams and it’s natural to assume that any good defense should have more than one good player in the front-seven, right? Von Miller was a better player when he played next to Aaron Donald and Aaron Donald was a better player when he played next to Von Miller. The Seahawks didn’t just sign Jones, they added Jarran Reed, Cameron Young, and Derick Hall to a group with Uchenna Nwosu, Darrell Taylor, and Boye Mafe; the hope is that all of them make each other better.

Being a pass rusher shouldn’t be a problem for Jones and that’s really the heart of most big contracts for players who play along the defensive line.

At $17.1 million AAV, Jones is now in the same ballpark as Jonathan Allen, Vita Vea, Kenny Clark, Arik Armstead, Grady Jarrett, and Cameron Heyward for what’s deemed as “interior defensive linemen” and that could make his contract size relatively fair to the market value. He’s not as good of a pass rusher as Donald or Chris Jones but he’s also not making as much as those players.

Armstead’s last three seasons: 3.5 sacks, 6 sacks, 0 sacks.

Grady Jarrett’s career-high for sacks is 7.5 and he averages 5 sacks per season. If Jarrett creates 25 pressures, that’s a good year for him. It’s worth noting, however, that Dre’Mont Jones has created 37 pressures (per PFR’s numbers) over the past two seasons, with a career-high of 21 in 2021, so he’s not yet in that realm for consistently disrupting the quarterback. The Seahawks are paying a little bit for what they hope he will become on their defense in the future, which was a gamble that paid off for Pete Carroll many times in the past: Chris Clemons, Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, and Nwosu being some examples.

Where the Denver Broncos may have hesitated, as well as other teams (John Schneider said he was surprised that Jones came so cheap actually—“We thought his market would be even stronger than it ended up being.’’) according to Sanderson, is on run defense:

Despite being in the backfield frequently as a pass rusher attacking the B-gaps, he got pushed around in the running game due to a lack of power at the point of attack.

Jones only finished the season with 26 total tackles, tied for 31st in the league among interior defensive linemen with at least 193 run defense snaps. His 18 run stops were tied for 34th, and his run stop percentage of 7.2 percent was tied for 35th.

The issue, according to Sanderson, is that Jones has lacked the strength to have versatility on the defense line.

Making this evaluation even harder is going back to the tape and trying to understand what the Broncos have tried to do with Jones as a player. He was used as a B-gap attacker from various alignments, but mostly coming across the face of the tackle from the 5-technique to place interior offensive linemen in conflict due to his first-step explosiveness and ability to shoot the gap. 

However, when placed as a 3-technique defensive tackle, Jones struggled to create separation in a phone booth, causing him to get overpowered in the run game. He lacks the lateral agility, twitch, and bend to come around the arc as a pass-rushing edge defender, so he has some limitations to how the Broncos can deploy him unless he brings more power to his game in the future.

After practices last week, Jones commented that his role is “similar” to what he was doing in Denver:

“My role is kind of similar,’’ Jones said. “ … I’m doing a lot more outside stuff in base, but it’s still similar to what I did in Denver.’’

Pete notes, however, that the Seahawks can’t be certain what they have in Jones and how he will be deployed next season until they get to know him better.

“It’s been smooth as can be,’’ Carroll said. “The learning and the concepts and the principles of stuff that we’re doing. And we’re learning him too, because, he’s got special talents we want to make sure and accent them and use them. We’re learning that as we go. But he’s been really consistent about everything. So he’s been really solid.’’

Did Seahawks overpay for Dre’Mont Jones?

If you asked Broncos GM George Paton, who called Jones “a core player” weeks before free agency, he would probably say that Seattle overpaid for Jones. Oh sure, he would lie and say that they didn’t, but in his opinion the Seahawks obviously gave Jones more than Denver was willing to give him.

How could anything else be the truth?

The Broncos gave Zach Allen, who is a more respected run defender and had 25 pressures last season in the same number of games as Jones, more guaranteed money than what the Seahawks gave Jones. According to Jones, the Broncos “didn’t pay me my proper respects” and that’s reflected in the contract offers they gave him prior to free agency.

So, the Broncos do think that Seattle overpaid.

According to Schneider, it seems like the between the lines read on his comments about the market would suggest that other NFL teams think the Seahawks overpaid. Maybe not 100-percent of teams, as not all 32 teams had the money to afford Jones, not 100-percent of teams have a need for a player at his position, not 100-percent of teams would allocate those funds in the same way. So it could just be that Jones market was reduced to three or four teams who were at the perfect crossroads to be able to make him a competitive contract offer.

Teams that signed free agents like him to notable contracts include the 49ers, Broncos, Browns, Vikings, and of course, Seahawks.

But what really is an “overpay” anyway? The Seahawks paid him what it cost to secure his services, so whether that was $14 million per year or $17 million per year, the final amount is what determines is value and what it costs to have Dre’Mont Jones. If the alternative is that the Seahawks save the money and don’t have Jones, then what would have Seattle been able to do?

Increased their offer to Zach Allen and overpaid him? Kept Jefferson or Harris? Overpaid Marcus Davenport? Drafted Tyree Wilson and cost themselves a chance to get Devon Witherspoon?

By “overpaying” Dre’Mont Jones, the Seahawks were able to address other opportunities in the draft and were also able to avoid potentially bad contracts to other players who had either run out of opportunities in Seattle or who offered less upside than Jones, a 26-year-old defensive end who may only be scratching the surface of his potential if he’s able to stay healthy and is properly utilized by the right coaching staff.

If one or two years from now we’re saying that the Seahawks “overpaid” for Jones and he’s no longer on the roster, that may have been still the right cost to take a chance and find out.

Overpay? Maybe. Worth it? Yes.

Sunday follow-up article: Why Geno Smith’s 2023 season could be as productive as Matt Ryan’s MVP campaign

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