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There have been multiple rumblings over the past few days that the Jacksonville Jaguars will pursue Detroit Lions defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh in free agency and now that he will actually hit free agency, those rumors continue to persist.
I've been one of the most adamant voices against that, mostly because I just don't envision the Jacksonville Jaguars going out and paying Suh over $100 million in free agency. But, after thinking about it I'm doing a complete 180 on my stance and I now think the Jaguars should pursue him.
Basically, I realized I'm an idiot and you should never listen to me. Doesn't matter where he plays. Doesn't matter who else is on the team.
The Jaguars will have near $70 million cap space, by far the most in the NFL. The Jaguars have a legitimate shot to sign a Top 10 player in the NFL. Not just at their position, in the NFL. When's the last time the Jaguars could sign the best defensive player in franchise history?
Some former NFL general manager's have likened the availability of Suh in free agency to have a Reggie White type impact on the team who signs him, like what happened with the Green Bay Packers, signaling they were for real and coincided with their rise back to prominence.
I'm not sure I agree Suh is on that level, but he's legitimately one of the best players in the NFL and probably the best defensive lineman in the league not named J.J. Watt, but he will certainly get paid more than Watt because that's how contracts in the NFL work.
The Jaguars are in such a healthy cap situation, in part because they don't have any impending free agents of their own to re-sign in 2015 OR in 2016. They also can't re-sign any of their draft picks until after the 2016 season, which will be right around when a lot of these potential big free agent deals they could be signing will be a lot more reasonable depending on how they structure them.
In regards to Suh, you could theoretically create a deal for him that not only makes him the highest paid defensive lineman in history, which is what he's going to be looking for, but you can also structure it in a way that you can get out of the deal after three seasons without a huge chunk of dead money and still spike your cash spending.
How? Like this:
You're welcome John Idzik.
Anyway, I'm currently on Team Spend All The Monies and the more and more I look at it, the more it makes sense to sign Suh and just figure out how to use him on the roster.