(01-04-2024, 12:46 PM)Jaguarmeister Wrote:

(01-04-2024, 12:01 PM)NYC4jags Wrote: Yeah - there was a time last year when I thought maybe we needed to see consistent sack production from him to feel good about an extension. 

The more I dug into his advanced stats and read NFL defensive coaches opinions on pressure vs sacks and how to interpret analytics, I altered my thinking on that. Then this year happed and I have zero doubts about paying him top 5 money at his position. 

We trudged through a desert of bad pass rushers in all of the many years between Tony Brackens and Yannick Ngakoue.
Yet folks want to let a bird in hand fly the coop. 

We trudged through years of ineptitude and [BLEEP] stories at WR between Jimmy Smith and Christian Kirk and now folks are like "Yeah 1000 yards from Ridley is nice, but he's no Calvin Johnson, PASS!" 

Folks who don't want to retain quality talent at market value too easily forget how easy and horrible it is for a franchise to miss on pick after pick and FA after FA for years on end. I suppose this fanbase is seldom accustomed to what is required to retain top talent because we almost never have any to keep around.

Yeah I'm there with you on Ridley as well.  An "in-season extension" was not reached.  The 3rd rounder will be the comp and is a sunk cost at this point.  We are giving up the 3rd as trade comp whether we re-sign him or not in the offseason.  We are not likely to find his level of talent in the 3rd round at WR and probably a lot of other positions as well. If he wants to continue playing here, I would welcome him back on an appropriate deal.

Unless he's been a head case and that fact has been kept away from the media this whole time, he's appeared to have been a relatively model citizen while here and productive enough. It may not have been to the level that some expected, but if you look beyond the stats you can see he is more talented than many NFL WRs.  If anything, his market value isn't as high as he had hoped which should make him more affordable if we are aiming to keep him.