Did the Patriots make a mistake not franchising Onwenu?

[Family]

With the numbers I'm seeing that Onwenu will get, I absolutely think the new regime blew this.

Landon ****erson, a guard just signed for $20 million a year. What will Onwenu get selling himself as a decent/good tackle?

Wouldn't you want this negotiation leverage instead of starting from a free for all?

You might lose Dugger, but the safety market looks weak.

Everyone's patting the new staff on the back for a few signings, but this like a big mistake of misjudging the market to me.

 

[billdog3484]

we dont need to pay for top tier free agents. lets just get as many good players in here as possible. our team blows right now, no need to overspend for top of the market guys

 

[farn]

No. We’ve moved on from better OL in the past. It’d be fun for him to be back, but he isn’t prime Joe Thomas.

 

[bresna]

With the numbers I'm seeing that Onwenu will get, I absolutely think the new regime blew this.

Landon ****erson, a guard just signed for $20 million a year. What will Onwenu get selling himself as a decent/good tackle?

Wouldn't you want this negotiation leverage instead of starting from a free for all?

You might lose Dugger, but the safety market looks weak.

Everyone's patting the new staff on the back for a few signings, but this like a big mistake of misjudging the market to me.

Your answer is in your post. The 2024 Franchise Tag for OL is $20,985,000. There's no way Onwenu signs that contract when he knows he can get a lot more on a long term contract in the FA market.

 

[UGAPatsfan]

If the plan was to tag and trade, yes I believe they misread the market especially considering Duggar’s tag now looks too rich for the safety market.

They could have tagged Mike and maybe received a 3/4 rounder in return.

BUT…it’s possible the new regime doesn’t want to build a rep for holding players hostage who don’t want to be here.

Can’t get past reports from months ago that Onwenu was “as good as gone”.

 

[PowerRunRevival]

With the numbers I'm seeing that Onwenu will get, I absolutely think the new regime blew this.

Landon ****erson, a guard just signed for $20 million a year. What will Onwenu get selling himself as a decent/good tackle?

Wouldn't you want this negotiation leverage instead of starting from a free for all?

You might lose Dugger, but the safety market looks weak.

Everyone's patting the new staff on the back for a few signings, but this like a big mistake of misjudging the market to me.

Completely agree that we should have franchised Onwenu. With a number of safeties being released after we tagged Dugger I think if the team could have done it over again they would have franchised Onwenu instead.

 

[Hugepatsfan]

A franchise tag for Onwenu would have been $21.2M. And that's straight 1 year deal. No cap maneuvers or anything. It's $21.2M of cash and cap space.

If they want to keep him, that number can make negotiations tough. It's such a high salary that it disincentives him to agree to a long term deal. The structure on most of those deals via huge year 1 payout via signing bonus (with low salary). Then in year two they get a huge guaranteed salary but not as much as the signing bonus. After that it's sort of pay as you go. The tag gives OL such a bloated payday, that they don't need to lock in that lower year 2 salary.

If they don't want to keep him for top of the market money at all, doesn't make sense to lock in such a high number as the tag.

 

[Family]

BUT…it’s possible the new regime doesn’t want to build a rep for holding players hostage who don’t want to be here.

I don't see any indication Onwenu does not want to be here.

If that's the case franchising is a given negotiating advantage given to the team. He doesn't have the right to unrestricted free agency yet. And this isn't a Saquon Barkley situation. It would have been $20 million plus for one year. I can see an objection to a second year of being franchised. But the first would be viewed as a way to have more time to work things out.

 

[Family]

If they don't want to keep him for top of the market money at all, doesn't make sense to lock in such a high number as the tag.

Yes, but the premise is they want to keep him because that's what's been written pretty much everywhere.

 

[mike_usagisan]

I don't see any indication Onwenu does not want to be here.

If that's the case franchising is a given negotiating advantage given to the team. He doesn't have the right to unrestricted free agency yet. And this isn't a Saquon Barkley situation. It would have been $20 million for one year. I can see an objection to a second year of being franchised. But the first would be viewed as a way to have more time to work things out.

I think it's a question if he's worth $20 million as a guard to us (I'm not sure) and if the Pats would prefer to get a true RT. I'll wait until we see what they come up with before deciding whether they just misjudged his market or not.

 

[holyredeemer]

With the numbers I'm seeing that Onwenu will get, I absolutely think the new regime blew this.

Landon ****erson, a guard just signed for $20 million a year. What will Onwenu get selling himself as a decent/good tackle?

Wouldn't you want this negotiation leverage instead of starting from a free for all?

You might lose Dugger, but the safety market looks weak.

Everyone's patting the new staff on the back for a few signings, but this like a big mistake of misjudging the market to me.

They either misjudged the market or felt that he is not worth the market rate. Im sure they would’ve franchised him if they wanted him that badly. I just wish one of these days we could get back to getting something in return for our homegrown talent besides a comp pick. Makes me sick.

 

[Sam Bam Cunningham]

With the numbers I'm seeing that Onwenu will get, I absolutely think the new regime blew this.

Landon ****erson, a guard just signed for $20 million a year. What will Onwenu get selling himself as a decent/good tackle?

Wouldn't you want this negotiation leverage instead of starting from a free for all?

You might lose Dugger, but the safety market looks weak.

Everyone's patting the new staff on the back for a few signings, but this like a big mistake of misjudging the market to me.

Yes 100% big mistake. He will go to a better team

 

[Pape]

I do not think the idea of tagging Onwenu is a terrible idea... But he's not worth the cost of the Franchise Tag & the Transition Tag is just as bad... Maybe they further break it down to OL positions, but what i saw was 20m for Franchise, 19m for transition...

In my scientifically researched fact base analysis* of him as a player, I have him in the range of 15m +/- a bit aav, including the bonus money... structure it however you want...



* - I looked at OTC and said, yeah, right about here, between these two guys, that works for me...

 

[TheRainMaker]

Watch a team out of nowhere with "no cap room" sign him to a huge deal.

 

[Hugepatsfan]

With the numbers I'm seeing that Onwenu will get, I absolutely think the new regime blew this.

Landon ****erson, a guard just signed for $20 million a year. What will Onwenu get selling himself as a decent/good tackle?

Wouldn't you want this negotiation leverage instead of starting from a free for all?

You might lose Dugger, but the safety market looks weak.

Everyone's patting the new staff on the back for a few signings, but this like a big mistake of misjudging the market to me.

The tag can give the player as much negotiation leverage as the team. The tag guarantees a player a huge one year pay day. At guard, this dynamic is particularly in play because the OL group is thrown all together. Onwenu's tag number would have included averages of the more lucrative OT position. So that 1 year payout he gets is even a little inflated relative to his actual position's market.

If you tag a player, it can buy you time to work on an extension but the security of the huge payout disincentives the player from taking anything less than the absolute top of the market. So if we tagged Onwenu there were likely two outcomes:

1) He plays on the tag and takes over $20M of cash and cap for the year

2) We extend him at the top of the market for guard which is what it'd take

I get the sense they aren't interested in paying that price for outcome #2. And #1 isn't a good scenario because $20M cap hit is a ton of buying power to lose. You could sign 2-3 good free agents for that cap space because the cap hits are always less than the AAV.

 

[ahmed]

No. We’ve moved on from better OL in the past. It’d be fun for him to be back, but he isn’t prime Joe Thomas.

In the past when Brady was QB? How the hell is that relevant?

I am ok with this though. We match if we want him bad enough and it's not overpaying.

 

[ahmed]

I don't see any indication Onwenu does not want to be here.

If that's the case franchising is a given negotiating advantage given to the team. He doesn't have the right to unrestricted free agency yet. And this isn't a Saquon Barkley situation. It would have been $20 million plus for one year. I can see an objection to a second year of being franchised. But the first would be viewed as a way to have more time to work things out.

Why pay him $20MM for one year? He is not worth that and he would anchor any long term deal to that price.

I am ok paying top money for elite talent. He is not that.

 

[Pape]

I am ok paying top money for elite talent. He is not that.

agreed.

He's good. He's not that good though.

He could be. Not there yet.

 

[palialka]

Obviously I could be totally wrong, but I think we’ll get a deal done with Onwenu.

I feel most of us are overrating his market value because our OL has been so piss poor the last few years. I think teams are reluctant to pay heavily for him because they don’t even know what his true position is.

To my eye he’s a decent-good RT, which made him our best OLman on our putrid line. Are teams gonna fess up 20-25M per year for that? Highly doubtful IMO.

He’s probably best suited at RG, but again, are teams gonna hand over 20M+ per year for a G that hasn’t played there regularly?

I believe these uncertainties will work in our favor to get a deal done without breaking the bank.

Then again, what do I know?

 

[Family]

Why pay him $20MM for one year? He is not worth that and he would anchor any long term deal to that price.

I am ok paying top money for elite talent. He is not that.

agreed.

He's good. He's not that good though.

He could be. Not there yet.

So I meant for this thread to be more about what they want to do, rather than a discussion on if Onwenu is worth it because I do not.

But if the team is in there with the negotiations, they misjudged this market from what I see.