austinslater25":24jywjo8 said:
Ok explain to me why you think Kearse is worth it. Are you happy with his play this past year? Ready for him to be the #1 this year? I'm all ears, sell me on Kearse.....
He led the team in receiving yards last postseason, and was 2nd on the team in the regular season. In his last 6 playoff games he's slightly outproduced Doug Baldwin (yards, TDs).
He's pretty much had almost every huge catch the Seahawks have had in the postseason in this era. Had Lynch ran it in from the 1 yard line we'd all be talking about how legendary Kearse is for his miracle catch two plays before. Then you had the catch in the NFCCG to win it, and the catch in the previous NFCCG that put Seattle up for good. Kearse drops some (his drop rate is right around league average, FYI), and sometimes those drops take unlucky bounces, but he's already the most clutch WR the Seahawks have ever had in the playoffs. Ever.
In a better WR corps, both Baldwin and Kearse would be expendable. But right now Baldwin is one of the few WRs we can count on to get separation, and Kearse is the one guy we can count on to deliver on the deep throws. Our other weapons are mediocre at best on deep targets, with the exception of Luke Willson who's hands are much worse than Kearse's.
I'm not here to tell you Kearse is a great receiver, but he has a very particular skillset that is of crucial importance to our offense, and Seattle has struggled to find a player that can replace that deep ball skillset. Keeping him around at $2.3 million given the dropoff on deep targets is a massive no-brainer.
If you think $2.3 million for one year is too much to pay for a quality starter who fits a crucial role on the team and has an incredible history of clutch catches, I don't know what to say. That's a bargain price where the Danny Amendolas of the league command almost $6 million a year in open FA. $2.3 million is what you pay a high end backup, and Kearse is that at minimum.
And as others have said, there is a chance the FO could do to Kearse what they did to Jeron Johnson last offseason and slap him with the 2nd round tender only to pay him a bit less a couple months later after negotiating. I kind of think they won't risk it though. If they lost Kearse somehow this offseason that would backfire in their face pretty badly.