JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Well, now we know what $46.5 million buys: nine touchdown catches, 6.5 sacks and eight victories.
That's probably oversimplifying things, but that's what the Jacksonville Jaguars got out of tight end Julius Thomas and defensive end Jared Odrick in two seasons. Both played well in 2015, but they struggled last season and certainly did not give the Jaguars the kind of return they envisioned when they guaranteed the pair a combined $46.5 million as free agents.
Odrick, who was released on Monday, and Thomas, who ESPN's Adam Caplan reports is being traded to the Miami Dolphins, battled injuries and missed a combined 21 games in two seasons. Neither was on the field for the final six games of 2016, and Tom Coughlin, the Jaguars' new executive vice president of football operations, decided the cornerstones of the Jaguars' 2015 free-agent class would no longer be part of the team's future.
It wasn’t a surprise that the Jaguars released Odrick. The defensive end was due a $2 million roster bonus and would have had $3.5 million of his $6.5 million salary in 2017 guaranteed if he had been on the roster on March 13. Releasing Odrick, 29, saves the Jaguars $8.5 million, and they now have approximately $70 million in cap space entering free agency.
Odrick played well in 2015 -- he led the Jaguars with 5.5 sacks from the big end position in head coach Gus Bradley’s Seattle-style defense -- but battled shoulder and elbow injuries in 2016, missing 10 games. He played in six games in 2016 and had one sack and 12 tackles. He should still have a lot of good football ahead of him, but he isn’t a good fit for Coughlin.
Odrick wasn’t a problem in the locker room. He worked hard and played hard, but he has nontraditional ideas about training, nutrition and recovery. He has a variety of non-football interests, including acting and writing, and already has begun planning for his post-football career. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, except that it sometimes caused some minor friction in the building.
Coughlin does not handle minor friction well. His way is non-negotiable, and the player and the exec likely would have clashed at some point.
In addition, the thinking is that the Jaguars will go with a more traditional 4-3 defense and stop utilizing a big end. That made Odrick, who signed a five-year, $42.5 million contract with $22.5 million guaranteed, expendable.
Thomas was linked to the team’s potential trade with Miami for left tackle Branden Albert, but a source said the teams came to a separate agreement that is sending Thomas to the Dolphins, where he will be reunited with head coach Adam Gase, who was Thomas' offensive coordinator in Denver. Terms of the Thomas deal are not yet known.
Thomas, who signed a five-year, $46 million contract with $24 million guaranteed in March 2015, has missed 11 games in two seasons with various injuries and, like Odrick, ended 2016 on injured reserve. Thomas caught 76 passes for 736 yards and nine touchdowns in 21 games for the Jaguars, but averaged less than 10 yards per catch.
The Jaguars didn’t use him correctly, either. They had him catch quick out-passes and then turn upfield to try to gain additional yardage. That’s not his game. He’s not a guy who evades tacklers or runs through them.
He’s better used downfield, especially on seam passes, or lined up outside in the red zone to get a mismatch with a linebacker. That’s how he was used in Denver, though some of his success there was because he had Peyton Manning throwing to him and Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders were receivers on the outside.
Plus, the Jaguars asked Thomas to be a blocker, which isn’t a strength.
The Jaguars could have cut Thomas on Feb. 10 and not have had to guarantee $3 million of his $7 million salary in 2017, but they opted to hold on to him and trade him.
The Jaguars haven’t hit many home runs in free agency over the past four years, and two of their top signees in that period are gone -- with nearly $50 million in their pockets and the Jaguars no better than when they arrived.