Allen Hurns’ contract the worst on the Jacksonville Jaguars according to Bleacher Report
By Daniel Lago
After far exceeding his status as an undrafted free agent in 2014 and 2015, Allen Hurns might be overpaid according to an analyst at Bleacher Report.
The Jacksonville Jaguars only won 5 games in 2015, but they were actually quite entertaining to watch thanks to the immense growth of several individuals on their offense. The primary guys – Blake Bortles, Allen Hurns, and Allen Robinson – set franchise records for productivity and all appeared on the NFL Network top 100 list over the summer of 2016.
As we all know, the Jaguars couldn’t live up to the hype during the 2016 season and a big reason why was the regression of the offense. Blake Bortles was the primary culprit, but his weapons on the outside didn’t help very much.
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Gary Davenport over at Bleacher Report went through all 32 teams and identified the worst contract for each club. He decided to pick on Allen Hurns as he tries to recover from a down year:
"Worst Contract: Wide Receiver Allen Hurns—4 years, $40.7 million (through 2020)This is another good-idea-at-the-time deal.When the Jacksonville Jaguars re-upped Hurns, he was coming off the first 1,000-yard season of his short career. Quarterback Blake Bortles had just finished second in the NFL in touchdown passes. The Allens (Hurns and Robinson) were going to dominate the AFC South for years.Instead, Bortles’ play fell off a cliff, Robinson’s production tanked and Hurns got injured and leap-frogged by Marquise Lee in the receiver pecking order.If Hurns has another 35-catch, 477-yard season, he’s going to be cut and this deal will look even worse."
The last line of the analysis is the kind of vapid tautology we expect to see during the offseason (any contract for any player will look bad if they aren’t good) and overall I don’t agree. Hurns’ cap hit in 2017 will be $7 million, good for 22nd among wide receivers and sandwiched between Mohamed Sanu and Robert Woods.
Given what Hurns has shown on the field when he’s healthy, that’s more than a fair price to pay for his services. Davenport also basically handwaves past Hurns’ injuries in 2016, which isn’t trivial considering he was still a solid producer even when he took the field with nagging injuries.
Honestly, I’m not sure how Davenport didn’t go with the easy and obvious answer – Chris Ivory. The Jaguars are making Ivory the 6th highest paid running back after having taken Leonard Fournette with the 4th overall pick. That’s a lot of money to pay a backup tailback.