The Commanders opened up free agency signing DT Javon Kinlaw to a 3-year deal... This moves confuses us a little bit.
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00:00But, head on a swivel here, we will be breaking down the first day of free agency in the National
00:06Football League, legal tampering, which just means it's the day that free agency kicks
00:11off lots of news all over the NFL, including the Washington Commanders making their first
00:18splash today, going out and getting defensive tackle.
00:21Javon Kinlaw turns 28 in October, he's a 27-year-old, coming off of his fifth NFL season.
00:28Adam Peters was in San Francisco when Kinlaw was drafted 14th overall by the 49ers back
00:35in the pandemic year in 2020, and if we're being frank, he's been a disappointment since
00:40then.
00:41Onto his second team last year with the Jets, a career high, four and a half sacks, a career
00:45high, five tackles for loss, and the second best season in his career in terms of hits
00:50on the quarterback with five.
00:52This is not a guy that puts up pass rushing counting stats, the grades for him against
00:56the run have not been overly favorable, but obviously Peters, by giving him three years
01:00and 45 million, 15 per basically guaranteeing him the first two years of this deal at 30
01:07million.
01:08Obviously Peters thinks that there's more in the tank for this 27-year-old than what
01:12he's put on his pro football reference page.
01:14Yeah.
01:15Three things.
01:16Super quick.
01:17Hello, Grant and Dave.
01:18How are you on free agency day?
01:19That's number one.
01:20Number two, I'll be scored again.
01:21Eight away of tying single digits.
01:22It's happening.
01:23This is one of those, you got to really stretch and go benefit of the doubt here.
01:28Peter's knows better than, than all of us, obviously scouted, drafted familiar with his
01:32work for, uh, you know, the beginning of his career for several years, saw an awful lot.
01:37What went in on a daily basis in terms of training, dedication, et cetera, because the
01:41numbers haven't been there.
01:42The grades haven't been there.
01:44The, the, the impact on games talking about Ken law now simply hasn't been there.
01:48So what you're doing is you're betting big that it will be because that's not top of
01:52the market money.
01:53I mean, the money is, is not quite, uh, you know, NBA ridiculous, where if you've dribbled
01:59the basketball three consecutive times, you're now a $35 million dude, but the money's flying
02:05here.
02:06Uh, guys are getting paid.
02:07We'll go through all the, all these different signings, but for Washington, this is a betting
02:10big to me, at least betting medium that he will outproduce dramatically what John Allen
02:14would have given you at a little bit more of a salary cap hit.
02:17I don't know that I feel that way to be honest with you, just calling balls and strikes here.
02:20I'm not as confident that they're going to get a lot out of Javon Kinlaw, but they just
02:23made Javon Kinlaw, the 19th highest paid defensive tackle in the NFL at 15 per year.
02:28They also have, I believe the eighth or ninth highest paid player right now in Duran pain
02:33at 22 and a half million dollars per year at the tackle.
02:36But presuming that pain is going to be on the roster and starting for them.
02:40And there's no reason after they moved on from Allen that you wouldn't anticipate that
02:44pain is 28.
02:45You lock him in and Sharpie, they drafted Johnny Newton just outside of the first round
02:49last year in the top 40 at 36 overall, you would have thought he would have been starting,
02:54but you're not bringing in Kinlaw to not play him a ton.
03:00And I know that the D tackle position is one where there is a rotation.
03:03Here's how I feel about this.
03:05Kinlaw has to be able to stop the run or else this will not work.
03:08If he can help you against the run, then this can absolutely be a win.
03:12If that's not going to be a strength, if he's going to be a liability, which at times, according
03:16to the PFF grade in San Francisco, he was, then I don't really understand this because
03:21he's not going to be an elite pass rushing D tackle.
03:24And I actually think you have two guys that you pay to do that already in pain's case,
03:29a lot of money.
03:30And in Newton's case, that's largely why you drafted him to be a disruptor, to be a guy
03:34that gets up the field and pushes the pocket and collapses the interior.
03:38That's what he was at Illinois.
03:39Javon Kinlaw doesn't really put up those kind of pass rushing numbers to make you think
03:45that that's what he is.
03:46But obviously they think he can help make them better against the run.
03:49Danny, last year they were 28 in yards per play against the run, 28th of 32 teams.
03:55And since then they have released D tackle John Allen.
03:59And while I loved bringing Bobby Wagner back and I viewed it as the right thing to do,
04:04he is getting a year older, was already not fast laterally sideline to sideline.
04:08So you got older at Mike linebacker and you didn't bring one of your better D tackles
04:12back for a team that was bottom five stop in the run.
04:15So you had to do something up the middle.
04:17This was that something to kick off free agency.
04:20They clearly know it's a problem.
04:21The question is just, and you give them the benefit of the doubt because they were awesome
04:25last year at a lot of the moves they made, especially in free agency.
04:29But do they know better than a lot of the people that have covered him in San Fran and
04:32New York and in those two teams where basically they're saying, yeah, I'm not so sure this
04:36guy's the run stuff or that you want him to be.
04:39But that's what this has to be for me to make this make sense.
04:42There's gotta be a schematic fit that people aren't thinking about.
04:44There's gotta be some sort of skill set that makes sense in there.
04:47One, the gap scheme that he wasn't doing in other places.
04:50Again, the, this is one of those where there's a reason I'm not making these decisions and
04:55I should, and I'm not qualified to, and most of us aren't obviously, but when you look
04:59at it on paper and the data that we have access to, you go, I don't really see this one.
05:03I don't really get this one.
05:05This is not the, here's our first order of business, establishing what we're looking
05:09for.
05:10Right?
05:11You know, the, the instant the clock strikes noon and everybody starts going fast and furious,
05:15you see what the priorities are.
05:17When Carlton Davis gets signed, one of the best cornerbacks on the market, that's where
05:20we needed to upgrade.
05:21That was our first priority.
05:23This is their first order of business.
05:25Doesn't mean they weren't calling other guys, but they're going, we're getting this one
05:27done.
05:28We're going to show you like, this is our mission statement.
05:30Whoa.
05:31I don't know.
05:32This, this is one of those, maybe if you waited around, you could have gotten a little bit
05:36cheaper or not at all.
05:37And I think you could, you probably could have found another Ken loss somewhere else
05:40for, for not as much just given what he's done or hasn't done in this league.
05:44I'm even willing to admit that this is a fault of mine.
05:46I don't necessarily think this is a good thing all the time, but I will never get upset with
05:51the money spent on football players that have a chance to make you a lot better.
05:56Like day one, day two of free agency, you can make big mistakes.
06:00You can give out bad contracts that are costly because that money could have gone elsewhere.
06:04And that's why I say about this move, I'm whelmed.
06:07Like I like it.
06:08Okay.
06:09I do not love it to me on a one to 10.
06:11This is like a 4.7 in the sense that I would probably not have done it just barely, but
06:16I'm also never going to get upset about adding to the trenches in this division with Philadelphia,
06:21seeing what we just saw in the Eagle stretch run and in the super bowl.
06:24I don't think you can have enough quality defensive linemen.
06:27I don't think you can have enough good offensive linemen.
06:30So I'm just not going to get upset at throwing money at either front ever necessarily, but
06:36I am very curious about this.
06:38Like I want to know what I don't understand.
06:40And that's what I would like to ask them if we had a chance to, they're way too busy trying
06:44to add more football players.
06:45So they're not going to be answering that question anytime soon for us.
06:49But when I look up any of the grades that are available on various sites, including
06:54PFF, and that's not the end all be all the run stuffing numbers are not particularly
06:58good in terms of how he was evaluated.
07:00And that was part of the knock in San Francisco.
07:02I do think he played the best football of his career last year with the jets.
07:06That's pretty obvious.
07:07When you look at four and a half sacks and the tackles for loss, still not impressive
07:12to the quarterback hits.
07:13These are not big numbers.
07:14We're talking about five all year in 17 games, but it was the best he'd been statistically.
07:19And maybe that's interesting to them, but they love guys that they know.
07:24This has been very clear since last year.
07:26There are players that came here for Anthony Lynn, see Austin Eckler in the backfield.
07:30There are players who came here from Ken Norton, see Bobby Wagner.
07:33There's a slew of guys that came here from Dallas.
07:36See Dante Fowler and Tyler Biotish and Dorrance Armstrong because of Dan Quinn, Adam Peters
07:43has a type two.
07:44He went and got Debo Samuel.
07:45Now the next big move is Javon Kinlaw.
07:47These are guys he helped acquire in San Francisco.
07:50That's part of this is that to your point, they know the guy.
07:52And I think they bet on the character of the player doing what they need him to do.
07:56So I want to be clear.
07:57I don't hate this.
07:58I'm not like angry.
07:59This isn't, you know, a Rivera level signing or a bit of an aptitude.
08:02I'm not saying that at all.
08:03This is one of those.
08:04I think I would say I'm in a similar boat to you here, Jeeps, from kind of scratch my
08:07head going, they've got to know something that we don't because there's just me as a
08:12rudimentary observer, reading the same things and watching the same things and refreshing
08:16Twitter every seven seconds, looking at a phone network or whatever has got a tracker
08:19going on.
08:20I go, this is not the one that makes the most intuitive sense.
08:25Like there are there are players, for example, like once DJ Reed went and once Carlton Davis
08:30is gone, I'm sitting there going and now it's Charverius Ward.
08:33Like, give me that.
08:34That's a priority.
08:35Let's get that done.
08:36What they did is kind of reshuffled their defensive tackle room a little bit.
08:38You, you, you swapped out John Allen, saved about 16 million.
08:43You got, you're going to pay 30 million guaranteed, basically 15 million per over the next two
08:46seasons.
08:47Kind of about a one for one swap there as close as you can get it with the new salary
08:52cap rules.
08:53Right.
08:54You know?
08:55And so how much different is Ken law than Allen?
08:57I mean, I think that's a very fair question.
08:59I don't know the answer to that.
09:00They do, but I'm not sitting there upset.
09:02I'm just kind of going, I don't quite, I don't quite get this one.
09:06Well, he's not better.
09:07I can promise you that, but he's 27 and Allen's 30.
09:11Yeah.
09:12That's to me worthwhile.
09:13If you can get younger and cheaper most of the time, I would rather do that.
09:19And this is not a one year deal.
09:20You know, this was finally an investment and it's kind of what I've been asking for, which
09:24is give me some multi-year splashes again, just a curious selection, but in the same
09:30way that when they acquired Debo Samuel and there were some detractors, one of the things
09:34I said was, well, I'm not one of these guys that's just going to sit here every time they
09:37make a move and say, Adam Peters knows best.
09:40I'm not going to question him.
09:41I think Peters has more info on Debo than any other GM that could have acquired him.
09:46No question.
09:47The folder that they have on that guy to go through in their boardroom is bigger than
09:51anybody else's.
09:53I would say the same thing about Javon Ken law, who he was around for four seasons, who
09:57he helped to draft in the top 15 of his draft class.
10:01I mean, yes, it has not worked, but I always kind of liked the, and the Nats are big on
10:05this with Mike Rizzo, top of the board draft pick with the physical traits and the tools.
10:10He's also massive.
10:11I mean, if you're six, five and three 20, I don't think people know how big he is because
10:16last three were the number 54, which was an outrage.
10:18And I hope he doesn't do that again.
10:19I guess he can't hear because of Bobby Wagner.
10:21Thank God.
10:22But you know, this Danny defensive lineman should not wear numbers in the fifties.
10:25You agree with me on that?
10:26I think we're whatever, but, but, but other than that, you know, the D line should wear
10:31numbers in the nineties.
10:32I think the 50, 60, 70 single digits, like whatever makes you happy.
10:36If you weigh 319 pounds, you should not wear a number 54.
10:40That's all I'm saying.
10:41And I think people maybe don't understand how big he is because of the numbers.
10:43Cause they're going to get confused.
10:44No, no, no.
10:45I'm not doing a bit.
10:46Like when you see a guy that's 54, you probably don't think of a dude who can be over top
10:50of the center as a smart car, but man, I hope they're right.
10:55They got to stop the run.
10:56Yeah.
10:57They need to be.
10:58I mean, that's the, that's the gig though.
10:59Right?
11:00I said last week when they released Allen, I bet you, they go get a pretty good defensive
11:03tackle.
11:04I just thought it was going to be a, you know, a world leader, like a Milton Williams.