The Jaguars are not expected to reach a long-term deal with offensive tackle Cam Robinson before Thursday’s deadline (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport). With that, he’s now set to play out his one-year, $13.8MM franchise tender. 
[RELATED: No Deal For Bears, Allen Robinson]
Other franchise tagged players like WFT guard Brandon Scherff, Jets safety Marcus Maye, and Bears wide receiver Allen Robinson find themselves in a similar spot. In the case of C. Robinson, he has the potential to hit the top of the market next year. The former second-round pick missed 14 games in 2018 with an ACL tear, but he’s since started 30 contests over the past two seasons.
With no real Plan B for the LT spot, the Jaguars assigned him the $13.754MM tag earlier this year. Robinson hasn’t performed as an elite left tackle, but he’s still only 25 with lots of room to grow. Ultimately, the short-term arrangement makes sense for both sides. Now, the brand new Urban Meyer can evaluate Robinson before committing. It also helps that they can afford to absorb the pay bump, since they’re armed with a league-leading $38MM in cap room.
Ten players were franchise tagged this year, down from 14 in 2020. Justin Simmons, Dak Prescott, and Leonard Williams have since signed extensions, leaving seven players in the group.
Wouldn’t if have made more sense for the Jags to let this guy walk, trade their 2nd first rounder to Balt for O Brown and had a 24 year old stud LT to protect their newest QB?
Baltimore got a 1st round pick for Brown so a 2nd rounder wouldn’t have mattered.
No the Jags second 1st round pick. They got the RB from Clemson instead.
I think that would have been a better return as well, but I understand the thought of giving your new coach as many picks as possible to build his team.
Well, the Jags have the cap space, so that won’t be a big issue for them. I suppose that they wouldn’t have had to spend a valuable pick on a tackle this year, but Robinson is an average player at the position right now. I don’t figure him as the future for more than a year or two, so trading the pick that would be Etienne for Brown may have been a move I personally would have liked. I do not really have any faith in Baalke as a GM in any capacity, so maybe a proven player would have been a better pick than a rookie selected by Baalke, but that part is my personal bias.
In general, I understand the desire to save picks for your new coach to reinvent his team. Of course, as I alluded to earlier, that new coach is Urban Meyer, the new GM is Trent Baalke, and the reinvention might just be a simplistic college scheme that gets crushed. At least they realized that they have a lot of cap space, so a franchise tag could be used on a less valuable piece than you’d normally save it for.
At first, I missed the “on” in the title. I thought “what, to build cardio”?