Elgton Jenkins Gets Extension

[Joemailman]

Rob Demovsky
@RobDemovsky
The Packers and Elgton Jenkins have agreed to terms on a four-year, $68 million contract extension, a source said, and it is expected to be signed today. It will make him the second-highest paid guard in the NFL and also would rank among the top-10 left tackles in the NFL


Good news. He's been outstanding since moving back to Guard.

[texaspackerbacker]

Good strategy - get him locked up while the market is a little bit low on him. I SAID he shoulda been a Guard all alongHe was crap at LT plus Tackle is not as important a position the way the Packers play. Tom seems to be adequate at LT and Yosh at RT, and both should get better with experience.

[Teamcheez1]

This says to me even more that they plant to move on from Bakh and play Tom at left tackle.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

“Guards are as replaceable as burger flippers.” - Ted Thompson, the day Wahle was terminated and Rivera was allowed to walk the walk of life.

[Joemailman]

This says to me even more that they plant o move on from Bakh and play Tom at left tackle.

It's possible. But they could convert Bakh's roster bonus to a signing bonus and save almost 5 million on the cap in 2023. That's almost as much as they would save by cutting him. Of course, that would increase the amount of dead money if they were to release Bakh in 2024. I suppose a lot depends on how much confidence they have in Tom.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Good strategy - get him locked up while the market is a little bit low on him. I SAID he shoulda been a Guard all alongHe was crap at LT plus Tackle is not as important a position the way the Packers play. Tom seems to be adequate at LT and Yosh at RT, and both should get better with experience.

Packers would be better off using the frogskins on a hotshot WR, TE or OLB.

How much better is the Fucking Center’s kung fu compared Tom and Runyan’s? Tom, can, too, play all 5 positions - and he’s a better tackle. Runyan has been solid as a rock at guard. There are plenty of Klemms and Whittakers on the roster - cough, Newman, cough - but finding bona fide guard replacements is as easy as, well, finding replacements for burger flippers.

[run pMc]

“Guards are as replaceable as burger flippers.” - Ted Thompson, the day Wahle was terminated and Rivera was allowed to walk the walk of life.

Rivera was having back issues and that's not a good sign for OL, Cowboys overpaid for him.
Wahle wanted to play T and wanted out of GB.
Also, they didn't have the cap space to keep both. That was well documented back then. (Yes, you can argue about cooking caps but that wasn't Ted's way.)
They didn't succession plan well for them -- just like how the current WR situation played out -- but it turned out ok. They ended up with Sitton, Lang, and a host of others in the following 2-3 seasons IIRC.

As for Jenkins, Demovsky reports it includes a $24M signing bonus. Don't know how it's structured, and it's a lot of money, but he's a very good younger player (27 this week) and you generally want to keep those. Jenkins has improved each week and appears to be back on his way to Pro Bowl caliber. The money shifts with Lowry probably helped make this happen. He's better at guard, but knowing he can move out and play T gives them some roster flexibility. Wonder if they try him at T next spring? I hope he stays at guard.

Rodgers is probably happy, and it's nice to know Jenkins won't be playing for the Bears next year.

Agree this might be indicative of what they will do with Bahktiari. Aside from QB (or K), is there another position where signing a player to a third (multi-year) contract is a good idea?

[run pMc]

Packers would be better off using the frogskins on a hotshot WR, TE or OLB.

Agree they need help at these positions, but I think they do so via draft. It's cheaper and likely easier to control the cost vs. production on a rookie deal.
When you sign a FA you are almost always overpaying, and GB doesn't have the cap space to make a big splash anyway. They have their own player contracts to worry about at the moment.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Rivera was having back issues and that's not a good sign for OL, Cowboys overpaid for him.
Wahle wanted to play T and wanted out of GB.
Also, they didn't have the cap space to keep both. That was well documented back then. (Yes, you can argue about cooking caps but that wasn't Ted's way.)
They didn't succession plan well for them -- just like how the current WR situation played out -- but it turned out ok. They ended up with Sitton, Lang, and a host of others in the following 2-3 seasons IIRC.

As for Jenkins, Demovsky reports it includes a $24M signing bonus. Don't know how it's structured, and it's a lot of money, but he's a very good younger player (27 this week) and you generally want to keep those. Jenkins has improved each week and appears to be back on his way to Pro Bowl caliber. The money shifts with Lowry probably helped make this happen. He's better at guard, but knowing he can move out and play T gives them some roster flexibility. Wonder if they try him at T next spring? I hope he stays at guard.

Rodgers is probably happy, and it's nice to know Jenkins won't be playing for the Bears next year.

Agree this might be indicative of what they will do with Bahktiari. Aside from QB (or K), is there another position where signing a player to a third (multi-year) contract is a good idea?

Packers won a Super Bowl with Daryn “Average Joe” Colledge playing guard. There are plenty of Colledges in the sea. Paying tackle money for a guy that can’t play tackle reeks of wasteful spending.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Agree they need help at these positions, but I think they do so via draft. It's cheaper and likely easier to control the cost vs. production on a rookie deal.
When you sign a FA you are almost always overpaying, and GB doesn't have the cap space to make a big splash anyway. They have their own player contracts to worry about at the moment.

There are exceptions, but rookie WRs and TEs commonly struggle in their first two seasons. Hotshot OLBers usually don’t fall to where the Packers usually pick (Thompson did heed my ingenious Mastery Mockery of a Draft once, trading up for the Claymaker). With a greying HOF QB, the Packers don’t have time to wait for the rooks to blossom.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

I’d be willing to bet my minimum-wage paycheck that if Sean Rhyan lays off the ‘roid’ and improves his technique, he will be just as productive at guard as the Fucking Center.

[texaspackerbacker]

“Guards are as replaceable as burger flippers.” - Ted Thompson, the day Wahle was terminated and Rivera was allowed to walk the walk of life.

By burger flippers, I assume you mean shutdown Corners hahahahaha. Yeah, those two entities are about equally replaceable.

The Packers running game in recent years has been primarily or at least most successfully done running in the Guard/Center area. Even though we had the "sacred cow" Bakhtiari, running off tackle didn't work very well. Jenkins is getting paid big Guard money - somebody said second highest in the NFL, but what would be top ten among Tackles.

APB, you're quoting and apparently agreeing with that on Polar Bear now? That's a little bit ironic, dontcha think?

[run pMc]

I’d be willing to bet my minimum-wage paycheck that if Sean Rhyan lays off the ‘roid’ and improves his technique, he will be just as productive at guard as the Fucking Center.

I'd be careful wagering that paycheck. Have we seen enough (or anything, really) of Rhyan to base an opinion on?
Not all guards are the same -- consider the difference among those on the Packers roster: Jenkins, Runyan, Newman, Hanson.
Would you swap out Jenkins for Hanson long term to save the frogskins?

Rhyan got exactly 1 snap this year in a regular season game; either he needs to get better or the coaches are playing favorites (or both). I had high hopes he'd break the R3 draft curse but it turns out he might not.
You need your R3 picks to be first year contributors and he couldn't even do that.

[Bretsky]

Love that they kept him; you can't lose stars.

I'll be curious if they give him a 3rd contract.

TED RULES; keep the stud's but don't have the OL a 3rd long term deal. They went against TED RULES with Bach.......wonder if they'll do the same again.

Anyways, VERY HAPPY we keep our Stud this time

[call_me_ishmael]

Ted kept Chad Clifton, no? Gotta protect the franchise, thus I imagine Bak sticks around.

[King Friday]

Ted kept Chad Clifton, no? Gotta protect the franchise, thus I imagine Bak sticks around.

He can’t protect anything if he’s not on the field. It shouldn’t take 2 years to come back from a knee injury. Bahk is done. He would be lucky to play half a season worth of football next year. Why keep him for that?

[Joemailman]

Tom Silverstein

By giving G Elgton Jenkins a $24M signing bonus and adjusting his base salary, the #Packers were able to write off $4.3M of his deal on the '22 salary cap and structure his deal so he will count just $6.8M against the cap in '23, according to a source. Helps them out a lot.

[run pMc]

Andy Herman mentioned the incentives where related to performance at TACKLE.

Presumably indicates of where they see him playing in the future and makes roster construction/cap mgmt interesting.
I think he's best at G, but whatever.

[call_me_ishmael]

Interesting! Did they not think he was a turn style at tackle? Harvey what’s your take? I kind of like how the new young buck is doing at tackle and wouldn’t mind seeing him settle down there.

[Joemailman]

I think Jenkins' struggles at RT was mostly a result him still adjusting to playing after a serious knee injury. It's only the last few weeks he's started to look like himself. I'll bet if they had to put him there now, he'd do better. He was fine at LT in 2021 before his injury. Still, he's a solid Tackle but an All-Pro at Guard, so I'd rather see him at Guard.

[run pMc]

I think Tom should play tackle, full stop.

Jenkins looks bigger/thicker and is better at guard IMO, but if they want to let him play RT they better give him a full offseason to get used to the technique. He hadn't played much RT before this season, and when he did he was still coming back from the ACL injury. He looked very, very bad.

Even if those incentives were just for the agent to use for announcing the contract, he's still going to be paid like a top 10 T and a top 2 G.
He's being very well paid when you consider he's made exactly one Pro Bowl.

[Bretsky]

When healthy EJ is a very solid Tackle and an elite Guard. The fact that he can do both at a very high level made resiging him a no brainer

[Joemailman]

Elgton's contract details.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FlExb57WYAA9J9V?format=png&name=large

[smuggler]

That last year looks a lot like funny money to me. Hopefully he plays well enough that they're forced to extend him rather than cut him, but time does terrible things to players.

[Sparkey]

Elgton's contract details.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FlExb57WYAA9J9V?format=png&name=large

So basically, it is a three year extension.

[Joemailman]

So basically, it is a three year extension.

Maybe not, if when we get to 2026 he's one of the elite Guards in the NFL. Salary cap will be going up. Salaries for elite players will be going up as well.

[bobblehead]

I think Jenkins' struggles at RT was mostly a result him still adjusting to playing after a serious knee injury. It's only the last few weeks he's started to look like himself. I'll bet if they had to put him there now, he'd do better. He was fine at LT in 2021 before his injury. Still, he's a solid Tackle but an All-Pro at Guard, so I'd rather see him at Guard.

I pretty much agree with this take. He has come on of late, but his first couple games at LG weren't stellar either. This contract is about Jenkins and has nothing to do with any other player.

[texaspackerbacker]

Maybe not, if when we get to 2026 he's one of the elite Guards in the NFL. Salary cap will be going up. Salaries for elite players will be going up as well.

Yeah, this.