Pro Bowl Snubs Announced
December 19, 2007The ‘Dawson Bar’
December 20, 2007Jamal Lewis having big season, but does this warrant big money over big years?
Jamal Lewis has been everything the Browns were hoping he could be, and then some. The questions over what Jamal had left in the tank coming into this season were fair. After all, despite being young in years, he was old in experience. In an offensive system in Baltimore that never featured a QB capable of being anything more than a game manager, Jamal was heavily used in Baltimore, and with no threat of a passing game, opposing defenses ganged up on Jamal. When you add this to Jamal’s natural bruising, overpowering running style, it adds up to a lot of hard mileage. It’s like the difference between a car with 50,000 highway miles and a car with 50,000 inner city stop and go miles.
The Ravens were doubtful enough of Jamal’s skills that they moved on to Plan B and brought in Willis McGahee and let Jamal Lewis walk out the door. The Browns, desperate for a feature back, decided to sign Jamal to a one year deal and let him prove that there was still life in him. The move has paid major dividends for both the Browns and Jamal. The Browns have been able to ride Jamal’s late season resurgance into a possible playoff run. Jamal, meanwhile, has been able to prove that he can still be an integral part of a playoff caliber team.
Jamal has proven to be an old school hard nosed RB in the mold of the great RBs in Browns history. He has endeared himself to the fans, and the fans have endeared themselves to Jamal. Of the Browns fans, Jamal has said,
“I love the fans here. They’re totally different [than in Baltimore].”
“Just due to the history they have here with the Browns. The history goes way back and you can tell. They are louder, but just the fan support period. Being on the road, you see a lot of Browns jerseys in the stands. We need that support.
“It translates [to the field] because we want to go out and play hard and win. It’s great. That’s what we owe our home record to.”
This Browns-Jamal marriage is starting to look like a perfect match. But the real question is, should the Browns sign Jamal to a long term deal after this season? Phil Savage has his work cut out on this one.
Jamal has said recently that he’s be perfectly content signing a string of 1 year deals to keep playing for the Browns. The Plain Dealer’s Bud Shaw, though, isn’t so sure he really would, writing:
“Negotiations with Jamal Lewis can’t be as easy as he made them sound recently when he suggested coming to terms was no more complicated than a page out of a children’s book.
See Jamal run. See Jamal sign.
Quoth the ex-Raven: “Hey, I’ll do one-year deals all day long.”
If this were true, of course, Phil Savage would tell Lewis to pick a day, any day.
Today’s not good for you, Jamal? Then how about tomorrow?
Morning. Noon. Night. Three a.m. Just call ahead.
Savage would send a car. All he’d ask is for Lewis to tell the driver to step on it and don’t stop if Lewis’ agent stands in front of the limo like that protester in Tiananmen Square.
Lewis says he isn’t necessarily looking for a one-year deal. No one would. But he wouldn’t flat reject it. All in all, he trusts his agent will put him in the best position.
There’s always that catch.”
I’m not so sure it’s quite that simple. Sure, if Jamal wants a one year deal, the Browns would give it to him. But part of the GM’s job is also to look at the team’s future. The Browns can’t afford to be caught with their pants down if Jamal were to suffer a serious injury or if he were to no longer be productive next season.
No matter how you look at it, Jamal is having a big year. In terms of RB Score (after Week 14), Jamal ranks 11th in the NFL in RB Score per game. Using Football Outsiders’ metric DPAR (defense-adjusted points above replacement), Jamal ranks a surprisingly low 19th in the NFL. But if you go by the only stat that really matters, rushing yards, Jamal is 7th in the NFL with 1,084 yards, averaging 4.3 yards per carry. He is on pace to finish with 1,239 yards, making this his best season since his Herculean 2003 season in which he rushed for an astounding 2,066 yards.
Some legit questions remain, though. Perhaps his low DPAR ranking is telling us something. If you look further, prior to rushing for over 100 yards in 3 of his last 4 games, Jamal had only topped the century mark once, Week 2 against the Bengals. Another concern with signing Jamal to a long term deal is his high number of career rushing attempts. Despite being only 28 years old, Jamal is already 28th in NFL history in attempts with 2,073 carries, just ahead of Roger Craig, Gerald Riggs, and Herschel Walker. Granted, LaDainian Tomlinson is ahead of him in carries and shows no sign of slowing down, but the only other active RBs with more carries are all guys well past their prime (Edgerrin James, Warrick Dunn, Fred Taylor, and Shaun Alexander). The active RBs just behind are also mostly guys past their prime (Ahman Green, Ricky Williams, Clinton Portis, Thomas Jones, Travis Henry, Rudi Johnson, Deuce McAllister, Michael Pittman). The fact of the matter is, rushing attempts are historically a pretty good way to gauge how much a RB has left, and Jamal is in the company of guys who are running out of gas.
Of course, if the Browns are really going to even think about not re-signing Jamal, there needs to be a replacement in mind. With no first round draft pick and the need to draft defensive players anyway, the Browns would need to turn to the Unrestricted Free Agent market (because the Browns do not have a 1st round pick, they cannot sign a Restricted Free Agent as they lack the required compensation). The top UFA’s next year will be Michael Turner, Julius Jones, Fred Taylor, Justin Fargas, and Chris Brown. The question is, which of those guys would you rather have than Jamal Lewis next year?
The only RBs that I think the Browns would consider would be Fred Taylor and Michael Turner. First off, Taylor probably isn’t going anywhere. It’s hard to fathom Jacksonville not hanging onto him for another year (despite the emergence of Maurice Jones-Drew). Michael Turner is going to be the desired prize of every team in the free agent market. He is going to carry a heavy price tag, despite the fact he has not proven he can be a feature back and carry the load by himself.
Ultimately, with no sure fire alternatives, I would expect the Browns to try to sign Jamal to a 2 year deal with a team option for a 3rd year. This will give the Browns a relatively affordable option at RB who will give the team some stability while they look for the long term solution at that position. There’s no real reason not to bring Jamal back at least for one more year. The Browns will almost certainly talk to Michael Turner and see what kind of deal it will take to sign him, but with such a shallow RB pool, I think his price tag will be too high for the Browns. The bottom line is, I expect to see Jamal as the Brown’s starting RB next season.
13 Comments
A big multi-year deal, no. I was one of those who thought JLewis was going to rip things up this season, and he has, but there is some damage from previous seasons under the carriage. I would give him a two year deal. He currently makes 3.5 plus a 1.5 performance bonuses. We can likely keep him by just making the contract 2 years, $8 Million with $2 million in performance bonuses a year.
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Yeah, I agree Shane. I wouldn’t even be opposed to a club option for a 3rd year. If he’s still productive after 2 more seasons, pick up his option for the 3rd year. I wouldn’t bet on him 3 years from now, but it’s certainly possible he could still be effective then.
Wow, James and Alexander are ‘way past their primes’? I would argue those two have plenty left in the tank. James would have Lewis’ numbers running behind this line, and Alexander has been hurt all season. I’d love to have Alexander in here on a four or five year deal.
I couldn’t disagree more about Alexander. Isn’t the fact that he’s always hurt now indicative of the abuse he’s taken by having so many carries? Seriously, look at the list of career rushing attempts. When guys get over the 2,000 attempts line, their number start to decline, in general. Sure, there are always exceptions….the true all time great RBs have been able to sustain to about 3,000 carries or so. But do I think Shaun Alexander or Jamal Lewis are in that class? Nah, not really. I think 3 more years of Lewis performing at this level is pretty much the ceiling of what anyone can expect.
Perhaps I should have included this in the post itself, but here is some research done on the topic of RBs and their peaks: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/articles/age.htm
Basically, the finding is that RBs tend to peak at age 27-28. Alexander is 30. Also, in relation to Alexander, Football Outsiders have done some research into a phenomenon they call the Curse of 370. Basically, what they say is that every RB who has carried the ball 370 times in a season, with the exception of Eric Dickerson, has experienced a radical decline/serious injury issues the following season. Alexander carried the ball 370 times in 2005 and hasn’t been the same since.
Again, these stats aren’t they final authority on anything. Just because it’s happened in the past doesn’t mean that it has to happen now with Shaun Alexander, Edgerrin James, or Jamal Lewis. But it does give us something to go on. I guess I’m just saying, take it for what it’s worth.
Anyone who honestly thinks that Shawn Alexander has something significant left in the tank obviously hasn’t been paying attention these last two years. You thought Droughns was bad with the Browns…
Edge, I don’t know, he may just be a Colts system guy. I would give Wright and Harrison a chance to be the star back over those two right now.
I agree with the 2 year deal and club option for year 3. But if we can’t resign Jamal, I wonder what the other ED-GE is up to these days!
Right Shane, obviously I don’t pay any attention. Like that Alexander had a broken foot in 2006 and still had over 800 yards and 10 TD’s. Or that he tried to play with a broken wrist this year, even after Mack Strong was injured and retired.
I’m not saying that either Alexander or Edge are significantly better than Lewis, I’m saying before you give Lewis serious coin and lock commit 3 years to him think about the other options.
Anyone who thought that Fed Taylor would bust 1000 yards this year raise your hand.
*raises hand halfway*
I always think Taylor will rush for 1000+ the question is will he last the season healthy.
Alexanders, broken foot, broken wrist, what is he going to break next? Do you want to rely on a running back who is older and constantly breaking something like he was an 80 year old grandmother?
Lewis had faith in our team, he has done well for us, we should show some loyalty to Lewis, especially since we’ve been on his back more then a few times these last few weeks.
So I suppose Willie Parker is washed up now too?
Actually, this injury probably save him from getting 370 carries on the season, which would have likely hurt him in the future. He’s 27 years old and the Steelers are running him into the ground. All that being said, though, obviously he’s nowhere near done yet. His advantage is that he got a late start, so his career carries are low for his age. I think he can sustain his current level of performance for 3 more years. 2 for sure.
So Parker gets one injury and we’re going to lump him in with a back who has been injured more then half of the seasons he’s played? Right, let us all jump onto the rash assumption train.
Don’t forget that Alexander hasn’t been the same back since Hutchinson left. That Morris has done better then Alexander with the exact same offensive line this year.