Philadelphia Eagles: Vinny Curry’s contract too expensive
By James Cobern
Philadelphia Eagles’ GM Howie Roseman has made three bold moves this offseason, reasserting his control of the personnel department, but giving Vinny Curry a $47.25 million deal was a major mistake.
The Philadelphia Eagles signed defensive end Vinny Curry to a 5-year $47.25 million contract, according to Tyler Dragon of NFL.com. This marks the third major move general manager Howie Roseman has made in getting players he sees as the future of the Eagles’ roster, including locking up tight end Zach Ertz and offensive tackle Lane Johnson, to sign long-term deals.
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But while Ertz and Johnson were medium risk high reward signing, this Curry deal is dead on arrival. And these are a couple of reasons why.
Projected Vinny Curry Salary
Data for table was collected from Spotrac.
Curry’s deal will make him the 6th highest paid 4-3 defensive end in the NFL over the next five seasons on average. The problem is Curry has never been the 6th most productive 4-3 defensive end in the NFL, nor has he even been the 20th.
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Curry was the 99th most productive edge rusher in 2015 based on total impact stats that includes market share solo tackle, sack and pass deflection data. And there will be many that will refute these claims by giving him the excuse that he was a 3-4 defensive end last year under Chip Kelly where he didn’t fit.
Which is true and he was much more productive in a 4-3 defense before the switch in 2015. But he was a below average pass rusher his entire career before even making the switch to the 3-4.
Curry has been a below average producer in his NFL career and his best Total Impact season was in 2013 where he was in the 43.5 percentile out of 1,121 rushers since the 2005 NFL season. And then you look at his “breakout” age at 25 years.
This is just a snapshot of what the best 25 year old edge rushers were doing while Curry wasn’t even average.
For his age, this is the group Curry produced with during his best season. And the Eagles, or I should say Howie Roseman just paid this man top 10 defensive end money.
Money doesn’t grow on trees for the Eagles. They can cut various players on the roster to make more cap room, but you don’t pay this much money to a contributor.
And even if you plan on making him a starter long-term, it’s extremely risky to pay someone that much money who hasn’t proven to produce in the top 10 consistently since he’s entered the NFL.
There is no scenario where I see Curry becoming a top 10 pass rusher next year, or more importantly that he will be able to maintain that production over the course of five seasons. This was by far the most egregious overpay this offseason, and I’m starting to get little worried about the direction this offseason is going for the Eagles.
They made a bunch of splash re-signs to lock up known names, but this can’t bring DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin and LeSean McCoy back. I understand that Roseman wants to show his players loyalty after the Chip Kelly era, but this is not the right way to do it.
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But I want to hear from you. D0 you see the Vinny Curry contract extension as a unnecessary and careless risk of cap space, or do you believe he will become a top 10 pass rusher for the majority of his contract?
Leave a comment below.