Northern_Falcon Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 BUFORD, Ga. -- Last week, the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers engaged in the first big game of the NFC South season. They battled over free-agent defensive end Charles Johnson. In the end, Johnson decided to stay with the Panthers. The Falcons ended up with Ray Edwards, which isn’t a bad consolation prize. But did the Panthers really win? I’ll let you argue that out in the comments section below. But, before you do, let’s review the two players. Johnson’s only 24, but he’s also had only one really good NFL season. That was last season, when he posted 11.5 sacks. Edwards had a pretty steady run in Minnesota, but never did accumulate more than 8.5 sacks and he was playing opposite Jared Allen. Before you give your argument, there’s one other thing you should consider. That’s money, which many believe is what the NFL really is all about. I’ve got full contract figures on the deals Johnson and Edwards agreed to and there is a very substantial difference. Johnson’s six-year deal could be worth up to $76 million and it also included a $30 million signing bonus. That means expectations will be high and Johnson better put up double-digit sacks on a yearly basis to justify a contract that averages almost $12.7 million a season. We don’t know exactly what the Falcons were offering Johnson. But they ended up paying a lot less for Edwards. His five-year deal is worth $27.5 million. That’s an average of $5.5 million per season. Edwards’ signing bonus was $4 million. For comparison sake, let’s also take a look at the deal Jason Babin took with the Philadelphia Eagles. Babin already is in his 30s and was considered by many to be the third-best defensive end on the market after Johnson and Edwards. But Babin actually got a slightly bigger contract than Edwards. Babin’s five-year deal is worth $27.725 million, an average of $5.545 million per year. Go ahead and argue it out over whether the Falcons or Panthers got the better deal. But don’t forget to at least weigh how money plays into this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HASHBROWN3 Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 (edited) I would love to see Ray outperform CJ this year. I personally really wanted to see CJ in a falcon uniform. But in hindsight it is clear that CJ is not worth 3X what Ray Edwards brings to the party. Welcome home Ray! I think Ray will really come to appreciate what we have here in Atlanta and will be motivated to give his best effort on the field... I will be rooting for Edwards to have a great season sacking the QB... Edited August 4, 2011 by HASHBROWN3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern_Falcon Posted August 4, 2011 Author Share Posted August 4, 2011 I would love to see Ray outperform CJ this year. I personally really wanted to see CJ in a falcon uniform. But in hindsight it is clear that CJ is not worth 3X what Ray Edwards brings to the party. Welcome home Ray! I think Ray will really come to appreciate what we have here in Atlanta and will be motivated to give his best effort on the field... I will be rooting for Edwards to have a great season sacking the QB...Same here, I also think Edwards will have tips and ideas to bring to us from some of the great vikings players e.g Jared Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phattywankenobi Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Blind side pass rushers will and should get paid more because they should convert more hurries into sacks. The fact that Carolina has been scraping the bottom of the loser barrel means they had to pay a premium for talent whereas players want to go to Atlanta. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HASHBROWN3 Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I agree Phatty, a whole lot can be said for the fact that Atlanta has formed something special and the word on the street speaks for itself... Great Ownership, Management, Scouting, Coaching, and most importantly... Great Locker Room... When its all added up, it translates to SUCCESS. It makes for a great place to go to work. Ray saw that and I appreciate him signing up at a reasonable cost to become part of something special!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g-dawg Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Blind side pass rushers will and should get paid more because they should convert more hurries into sacks. The fact that Carolina has been scraping the bottom of the loser barrel means they had to pay a premium for talent whereas players want to go to Atlanta.agree on points above phatty. But if Atlanta was offering CJ $8-9million/yr and Carolina paid $12.7million/yr - that is just awful negotiating skills on Carolina's part. I bet CJ's agent convinced Carolina that Falcons were offering $11mm/yr. Carolina got hoodwinked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kschreck Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 If the debate is about value, there is no debate. It should be obvious to any rational human being which was the better value. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g-dawg Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I think CJ is the better player - but not by a huge margin. If Ray Edwards continues to put up 8 sacks/yr for Falcons, then Ray Edwards would need to put up 17sacks per year and twice as many "hurries" as RayRay for the monies to be equivalent to production. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ch46745 Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 agree on points above phatty. But if Atlanta was offering CJ $8-9million/yr and Carolina paid $12.7million/yr - that is just awful negotiating skills on Carolina's part. I bet CJ's agent convinced Carolina that Falcons were offering $11mm/yr. Carolina got hoodwinked.Based on how bad the Panthers were last season, I believe that they had no choice but to give CJ that big of a contract in order to make sure that they would keep him. I also believe that if any good team would have offered him that same contract I'm sure that he would have left Carolina in a heartbeat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panther Pride Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I think CJ is the better player - but not by a huge margin. If Ray Edwards continues to put up 8 sacks/yr for Falcons, then Ray Edwards would need to put up 17sacks per year and twice as many "hurries" as RayRay for the monies to be equivalent to production.Charles has twice as many tackles and 3 more sacks than Ray, Johnson can stop the run and pass rush. Whenever Johnson was given a chance on the field to go into rotation with peppers he produced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HASHBROWN3 Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 (edited) Charles has twice as many tackles and 3 more sacks than Ray, Johnson can stop the run and pass rush. Whenever Johnson was given a chance on the field to go into rotation with peppers he produced.The falcons wanted CJ & nobody questions his talent, but as stated above the panthers have a boatload of money tied up in the big fella. Value-wise, we get excellent bang for the buck... CJ will get plenty of respect from the falcons, but y'all have a long ways to go in climbing the ladder of success and a much smaller bank account in the future... Edited August 4, 2011 by HASHBROWN3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markdzul Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Charles has twice as many tackles and 3 more sacks than Ray, Johnson can stop the run and pass rush. Whenever Johnson was given a chance on the field to go into rotation with peppers he produced.For the Panthers sake he had better continue to put up those numbers with the kind of money they paid for him. 12 million a year is perrenial pro bowl money... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g-dawg Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 For the Panthers sake he had better continue to put up those numbers with the kind of money they paid for him. 12 million a year is perrenial pro bowl money...agreed. Nobody on falcons board disputes that CJ is a good player - very good player. Now Charles Johnson is getting paid like a "top 3" Defensive End in the NFL - if he does not get to and stay at that level, then CJ will be tremendously overpaid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
didz Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 We will see by the end of this year. Who puts up the better stats. If Edwards gets even 1 more sack than CJ, than I think we got the best of the deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falcon918 Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I believe Ray is the perfect fit for us and he is equally good at pass rush as run defense. He gets consistent pressure on the QB and he will continue to get better. We made the right choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g-dawg Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 We will see by the end of this year. Who puts up the better stats. If Edwards gets even 1 more sack than CJ, than I think we got the best of the deal.If Edwards gets half as many sacks as CJ, we got the better deal financially-speaking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raysnill1 Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Charles has twice as many tackles and 3 more sacks than Ray, Johnson can stop the run and pass rush. Whenever Johnson was given a chance on the field to go into rotation with peppers he produced.he was probably on the field twice as long as Edwards too. bottom line, all we need out of Ray is about 6-9 sacks and provide constant pressure but Johnson needs to be other-worldly. reports already say that the guys have taken to Ray and they are gelling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Power I Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I think CJ is the better player - but not by a huge margin. If Ray Edwards continues to put up 8 sacks/yr for Falcons, then Ray Edwards would need to put up 17sacks per year and twice as many "hurries" as RayRay for the monies to be equivalent to production.Exactly. Did we all (or most) want Charles Johnson more and think he's a better player? Sure. Do I think he's twice the player Ray Edwards is? Absolutely not. He's better, but not by THAT much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxatlanta Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 The QBs get to see Edwards coming, it means he's gonna have a lot of plays that might be sacks from the blindside but wind up as "only" hurries or disruptions instead. Proof of this is the list put out by PFF which tallied all of the hurries and disruptions Edwards had last season (believe he was top 3).Meanwhile, Johnson has only put up the big year 1 time. He looks fantastic, but there is still the possibility that he played above his head for a year. I like his play a lot. But it's happened plenty of times in the past that a player has a big year and never lives up to the hype it creates. Furthermore, this "breakout" year he had was 11.5 sacks. Everyone should put that in perspective, lots of players have put up bigger numbers than that. Yet he was paid as if he was out there setting sack records.I think that Edwards not having the benefit of coming from the blindside, and having demonstrated consistency, makes his signing better. Just to have a decent argument- CJ would first need to improve upon what he did last year. All this is before we bring the money into play! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tandy Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 There is no question that Johnson has the highest upside and is the better end, but did it justify the pay? I don't know.I went and looked up their stats for their careers - and this is what I came up with as an average per year contribution by player:=================================================================================================Charles Johnson: Has played in an average of 12 games per year over 4 years = 48 games total.Averages:1.854 tackles per game, 0.4479 sacks per game, 3.76 sack yards per game, 0.229 PDs per game, 0.083 FF per game16 game Average per year contribution:30 tackles, 7 sacks, 60 sack yards, 3.7 PDs, 1.3 FF--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ray Edwards: Has played in an average of 14.4 games per year over 5 years = 72 games totalAverages:1.917 tackles per game, 0.4097 sacks per game, 2.62 sack yards per game, 0.153 PDs per game, 0.083 FF per game16 game Average per year contribution:31 tackles, 7 sacks, 42 sack yards, 2.5 PDs, 1.3 FF============================================================================================== Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxatlanta Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 One more thing to throw out there on this- The Panthers had Peppers and Edwards on their team. How in the world did they screw this up so bad?! They could have had the top two ends in the league (at least in a lot of people's minds) locked up for the long term... IN THEIR PRIME!!! We would never let an opportunity like that slip through our fingers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ch46745 Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 One more thing to throw out there on this- The Panthers had Peppers and Edwards on their team. How in the world did they screw this up so bad?! They could have had the top two ends in the league (at least in a lot of people's minds) locked up for the long term... IN THEIR PRIME!!! We would never let an opportunity like that slip through our fingers.There is a reason why they were the worst team in football last season and they have the potential to be a train wreck again this season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finally Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 agree on points above phatty. But if Atlanta was offering CJ $8-9million/yr and Carolina paid $12.7million/yr - that is just awful negotiating skills on Carolina's part. I bet CJ's agent convinced Carolina that Falcons were offering $11mm/yr. Carolina got hoodwinked.Probably not. They just knew they had to spend that much more than Atlanta because his chances of getting endorsement deals here are better which would make up for less money. We were the best team in the NFC last year which makes us an appealing landing place for any FA.I think the bigger bonehead aspect of the Carolina deal is the Dline gets hurt quite often. They will waste nearly 800k for any game that he misses going forward and you can bank on him missing games and playing hurt. That was why I didn't think they would go that high and we might have a chance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phattywankenobi Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 agree on points above phatty. But if Atlanta was offering CJ $8-9million/yr and Carolina paid $12.7million/yr - that is just awful negotiating skills on Carolina's part. I bet CJ's agent convinced Carolina that Falcons were offering $11mm/yr. Carolina got hoodwinked.I think it was desperation on their part coupled with the fact if I remember correctly their cap was pretty low this year and then they started over paying for every free agent this year. Contrast that with Atlanta negotiating prices I didn't think were possible until this year. I also think it was a little odd that Philly who is notoriously cheap went on a spending spree. Sounds a little like they are in boom or bust mode. Not to mention I think Vick is still one of the biggest risks out there. He's either going to great, horrible, or get injured but the only certainty is he won't play a full season and the back up is Vince Young not to mention Jackson may hold out until somewhere around week 10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phattywankenobi Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 One more thing to throw out there on this- The Panthers had Peppers and Edwards on their team. How in the world did they screw this up so bad?! They could have had the top two ends in the league (at least in a lot of people's minds) locked up for the long term... IN THEIR PRIME!!! We would never let an opportunity like that slip through our fingers.I honestly don't understand how they didn't recognize the combination of the talent myself. You bring up a point that is obvious I completely overlooked. I believe another huge reason they over paid for CJ is they had lost one of the best pass rushers in the league and probably one of the biggest icons on the team. They were not going to let it happen twice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.