After thinking about it, I'm rooting for Irvin to stay

[kearly]

A day in, and Irvin hasn't come to terms publicly anywhere yet. Only 3 teams besides Seattle have had reported interest. It's actually been a pretty quiet start to FA in terms of getting deals done across the board, but these two factors make me suspect that Irvin's market might not be as hot as we had been led to believe.

It feels like a few dominoes have to fall before Irvin signs. Teams will look at Mario Williams. If Williams signs in Miami as rumored, then Cameron Wake will probably be available. A team like Arizona (or Seattle) might value Wake on a short term deal more than Irvin on a big contract.

Pure speculation on my part.

 

[kearly]

Kearly, I was still thinking about this, and wanted to say: I'm a little surprised that you are still thinking you'd like to keep Bruce. The bottom line is that the Seahawks FO WAS/IS NOT even slightly interested in keeping Irvin. If there was a chance that they'd want to keep him long term, they'd have exercised his 5th-year option. It would have cost them less than $8 million for 2016. Irvin was obviously NOT in their long term plans.

Declining the 5th year option last offseason seemed obvious at the time.

I'm not saying that I expect Irvin back. I don't. Seattle had made no visible effort to extend him at any point.

All I'm saying is that Irvin will leave a hole behind that will be harder to fill than most people realize. I look at this draft and I don't see anybody close to Irvin. I look at our existing roster and I see some guys that could be exploited badly as starters. Seattle isn't quite ready to move on from Irvin just yet, and replacing him properly might take years.

It reminds me of them letting Maxwell go last year. It made perfect sense on paper, but it turned out that replacing Maxwell was much more difficult than initially thought and ended up causing a great deal of harm in the ensuing 2015 season.

The positional dropoff and difficulty of replacing Irvin is causing me to rethink his value.

 

[themunn]

I just don't know where the $10m number for Irvin is coming from.
He's a 4-3 OLB and only 2 4-3 OLBs in the NFL are making more than $7m per - Lavonte David and DeAndre Levy.
Our very own KJ is 3rd with 6.75m per.

Who is breaking the market for Bruce Irvin?

 

[kearly]

I just don't know where the $10m number for Irvin is coming from.
He's a 4-3 OLB and only 2 4-3 OLBs in the NFL are making more than $7m per - Lavonte David and DeAndre Levy.
Our very own KJ is 3rd with 6.75m per.

Who is breaking the market for Bruce Irvin?

Teams that run 3-4 schemes view Irvin as one of the best pass rushers on the market.

Some people have said that Vinny Curry set the market for Irvin. Curry is a LB who converted to 3-4 DE so I'm not sure that I'd agree with them. Anyway, Curry signed an extension last month for 5/46.25. Roughly $9.2m APY.

Jason La Canfora reported that an unnamed NFL exec told him that he "would do cartwheels" to get Irvin at $9m APY. That he expects Irvin to get more than that amount.

 

[Willyeye]

Kearly, I was still thinking about this, and wanted to say: I'm a little surprised that you are still thinking you'd like to keep Bruce. The bottom line is that the Seahawks FO WAS/IS NOT even slightly interested in keeping Irvin. If there was a chance that they'd want to keep him long term, they'd have exercised his 5th-year option. It would have cost them less than $8 million for 2016. Irvin was obviously NOT in their long term plans.

Having said that, I'm glad for Bruce that he'll likely be getting $10+ million from another team and I'm sure the Hawks FO is ecstatic that they could possibly get a 3rd round pick for him. I guess I just never looked at this situation over the last year and thought to myself that there was ANY chance that he'd be on the Seahawks in 2016.

They had to make the decision on his 5th year option last offseason. They probably didn't expect his value to be this high.

I kind of remember the thought process a year ago being that because it would be Irvin's last year on his rookie contract, that he would go ALL-IN and have one of those career-defining seasons in 2015. It didn't really happen, but yet the FA hype for Irvin this year seems to be out there nonetheless. I believe they were totally aware of what his value would be a year later regardless of how he did last season. I think it just boils down to they are cap-strapped to an extent this year and there's no way they can afford to pay all of their top 7 FA's...Okung, Sweezy, Irvin, Mebane, Rubin, Lane and Kearse...and they knew that all 7 of these guys would be UFA's. I felt that realistically they'd only be able to retain 2, maybe 3 best case scenario, of these guys. Unfortunately I predicted that Okung, Irvin, Sweezy and Mebane were for-sure goners, and I fear that will be the case. The one silver lining is of course that the Compensatory Picks they get for 2017 should be pretty decent picks, as long as they don't go crazy in free agency.

 

[kobebryant]

Yep, a handful of teams with a lot of money left to spend and some big FAs already off the market. Tomorrow is going to be Bruce day, a multifaceted player who other coaching staffs will see 10+ sack potential in if given more edge rush opportunities. As silly as it can be, there sometimes seems to be a "ring tax" too, where champions get a little more than you'd think (Malik Jackson just got 15 apy).

Hopefully the Hawks can hop on some short-term ring chasing released vets.

 

[Tical21]

Come on y'all, 38 tackles last year, 5.5 sacks, very few splash plays. You can get that for 500k. Whether or not he's a good/great player is a different debate. We don't ask a ton of our SAM LB. Set the edge against the run, get to the flat against the pass, and don't get caught peeking. That's basically it. We're going to pay a guy big money to do that, when we're up against the cap? Fact is, we start Mike Morgan there and nobody notices a thing. As far as a pass-rusher? Your 3rd down RE had better get more than 5.5 sacks. That's blindside we're talking about. Again, put Mike Morgan there and I don't think you notice a difference.

We'll see how good Irvin really is by whether or not Atlanta or Jacksonville pay him big money.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Jason La Canfora reported that an unnamed NFL exec told him that he "would do cartwheels" to get Irvin at $9m APY. That he expects Irvin to get more than that amount.

Maybe the 3-4 would be a better fit for Irvin.

If we had a ton of cap space and didn't have other glaring needs to use cap space for? I'd entertain keeping Bruce. But we don't.............and Pete and John knew this last year when we didn't give Irvin a new deal so he wouldn't hit FA.

The writing was on the wall with Bruce, so this shouldn't be a surprise to anybody that's he's going to leave for a big deal.

 

[kobebryant]

Come on y'all, 38 tackles last year, 5.5 sacks, very few splash plays. You can get that for 500k.

His 38 total pressures were the most by 4-3 outside linebackers by 14 total pressures

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2 ... ee-agency/

Who's providing that for 500k?

 

[McGruff]

Come on y'all, 38 tackles last year, 5.5 sacks, very few splash plays. You can get that for 500k.

His 38 total pressures were the most by 4-3 outside linebackers by 14 total pressures

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2 ... ee-agency/

Who's providing that for 500k?

Who is worth that for $10 million?

 

[nanomoz]

I'm with you in that he's pretty valuable in Seattle. But, he'll probably be even more valuable as an OLB in a 34. I'm still certain that someone is going to pay him a lot of money to do that job, and he's probably going to be at or near the top of the league pressures and sacks in that role in 2016.

 

[Tical21]

Come on y'all, 38 tackles last year, 5.5 sacks, very few splash plays. You can get that for 500k.

His 38 total pressures were the most by 4-3 outside linebackers by 14 total pressures

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2 ... ee-agency/

Who's providing that for 500k?

How many of those came from the LB position? Maybe 3-5? Almost all of those came from DE. Where does that rank against other players who played RE on every 3rd down?