Could the Jaguars actually let Allen Robinson hit NFL free agency?

The deadline for NFL teams to apply the franchise tag is Tuesday, March 6th by 4 p.m. eastern standard time. The Jacksonville Jaguars have not applied their franchise tag so far, with most assuming that they’re holding out on using it until a deal with wide receiver Allen Robinson can’t be reached by the deadline. As we get close to the deadline and free agency however, there seem to be some rumblings that the Jaguars could actually let Robinson walk and hit the free agent market.

The above tweet seemingly set a firestorm across Jaguars Twitter on Sunday evening, suggesting that the Jaguars are leaning on re-signing Marqise Lee and letting Robinson walk.

Surprisingly is underselling it.

That would be a colossally dumb move on the Jaguars part, letting one of their best offensive players on a team clearly screaming for a big play receiver in 2017, to simply just walk completely free into the open market.

I don’t know much about the trust worthiness of Roster Watch’s sources, but I haven’t really heard much of that from my own other than in the vein of “Can you believe people say they’re thinking about doing this?”

My reply is always the same, “No, I can’t. Because like... why?”

We can argue about salary cap and value all day long with someone like Allen Robinson, but he brings a dimension to the Jaguars offense that they missed last season and isn’t easy to replace. How many times last season did you find yourself saying “Man, imagine if we had Allen Robinson!”

A lot, probably.

Looking at the wide receiver market in free agency, it’s pretty bare. Robinson would be the clear cut best available receiver and after that you’re looking around at players like Tyrell Pryor or Danny Amendola. Sure, you can draft a wide receiver or two early in the 2018 NFL Draft, but relying on rookie wide receivers to make an impact always seems like an exercise in futility. Even if you’re not comfortable to re-sign Robinson long term just yet, you can franchise him and draft someone.

Did the team really finesse all that cap space with Blake Bortles contract to re-sign a nickel corner and Marqise Lee?

I apologize if it seems like I’m brushing the notion of Robinson walked off as ridiculous, because I absolutely am. I mean, C’mon... they can’t really be that dumb right?

All that being said, I’ll believe Allen Robinson isn’t on the Jaguars in 2018 when he isn’t, because frankly there’s no logical argument otherwise when you consider the alternatives.