Packers sign Finley 2 years 15 million

[NinerSickness]

ESPN.com news services

The Green Bay Packers have reached an agreement with tight end Jermichael Finley on a two-year, $15 million deal, a league source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.

Finley posted a message on his Twitter account Wednesday night appearing to confirm that he has agreed to return to the team. Finley wrote, "I could not be happier to have the privilege of being a Packer for the next 2 yrs. Glad to be back with my team & coaches for 1 common goal."

Finley was set to become a free agent, and the team was expected to consider using the franchise tag on him.

The 6-foot-5, 247-pound Finley is one of the NFL's most athletic tight ends, able to run and cut like a wide receiver.

The 24-year-old Finley bounced back from an injury-plagued 2010 season to play all 16 games last season, catching 55 passes for 767 yards and eight touchdowns.

He played in 32 regular-season games in his first three years, missing most of the Packers' 2010 championship season with a knee injury.

Packers officials did not immediately confirm terms of the deal.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

 

[BINGO]

ESPN.com news services

The Green Bay Packers have reached an agreement with tight end Jermichael Finley on a two-year, $15 million deal, a league source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.

Finley posted a message on his Twitter account Wednesday night appearing to confirm that he has agreed to return to the team. Finley wrote, "I could not be happier to have the privilege of being a Packer for the next 2 yrs. Glad to be back with my team & coaches for 1 common goal."

Finley was set to become a free agent, and the team was expected to consider using the franchise tag on him.

The 6-foot-5, 247-pound Finley is one of the NFL's most athletic tight ends, able to run and cut like a wide receiver.

The 24-year-old Finley bounced back from an injury-plagued 2010 season to play all 16 games last season, catching 55 passes for 767 yards and eight touchdowns.

He played in 32 regular-season games in his first three years, missing most of the Packers' 2010 championship season with a knee injury.

Packers officials did not immediately confirm terms of the deal.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

My first wish was for the Packers to lose him. My second wish after losing him was for the NY Giants to miss out on him as well. Packers IMO are still considered to be our biggest threat in the NFC with this news.

 

[BINGO]

Updated: February 22, 2012, 11:57 PM ET

Jermichael Finley's value inflated
Green Bay's tight end is overrated, but Packers didn't overpay for him
By KC Joyner
ESPN Insider

Dennis Wierzbicki/US Presswire
Jermichael Finley has been inconsistent in his young career with the Green Bay Packers.

Now that the Green Bay Packers have reached a two-year, $15 million contract with potential unrestricted free agent tight end Jermichael Finley, one might expect Packers fans to be feeling something of a sense of euphoria. After all, it isn't every day that a team can secure the services of an elite player.



That mindset would be understandable except for one minor detail, which is saying Finley is one of the best tight ends in the league really is not an accurate assessment. In fact, if one reviews Finley's numbers with an objective eye, it becomes clear that he might not even be one of the top 10 tight ends in the NFL.

To illustrate this, let's start by looking at Finley's route depth metrics from this past season:

Jermichael Finley's 2011 Stats
Route Depth Comp Att Yds TD Pen Pen Yds YPA
Short (1-10 yards) 31 47 302 4 0 0 6.4
Medium (11-19 yards) 20 32 330 4 2 -5 9.6
Deep (20-29 yards) 3 9 96 0 0 0 10.7
Bomb (30+ yards) 1 3 39 0 0 0 13.0
Total 55 91 767 8 2 -5 8.2
Vertical (11+ yards) 24 44 465 4 2 -5 10.0
Stretch Vertical (20+ yards) 4 12 135 0 0 0 11.3

If these numbers are viewed in a vacuum, they are solid, but remember that these are the numbers Finley posted in an Aaron Rodgers-led offense while Rodgers was setting an all-time record in passer rating (122.5) and becoming only the fifth quarterback since 1990 to tally a yards per attempt (YPA) total of 9 yards or higher (9.2).

Another way to view Finley's season is to note a point I made in an article posted in January that said the New York Giants' pass catchers were better than the Packers'.

I wrote that Jake Ballard/Bear Pascoe/Travis Beckum were more effective collectively: "It might come as something of a surprise to find that the Giants' trio had numbers that were quite comparable to the much more heralded Finley. The Giants' threesome actually bested Finley in season-long YPA (10.0 for the Giants' trio versus 8.2 for Finley) and did so on a similar number of targets (84 for the Giants, 93 for Finley)."

Some Packers fans got upset over that remark because it used a trio of players to compare against Finley, but consider how those YPA totals ranked against the YPA marks of the five Pro Bowl tight ends from this past season: Antonio Gates (8.9), Tony Gonzalez (7.6), Jimmy Graham (8.7), Jermaine Gresham (6.8) and Rob Gronkowski (10.7).

New York's tight ends were nearly as productive on a YPA basis as the top tight end in the NFL, while Finley bested only an aging tight end near the end of a very long career (Gonzalez) and Gresham, who was limited as his rookie QB gained a feel for that offense. The truth of the matter is the comparison was more than fair and Finley was on the losing end of it.

Gonzalez's poor YPA total might suggest that Finley should have made the NFC Pro Bowl roster in front of him, but if that were the argument, Finley would lose to other NFC tight ends, including Jason Witten (8.8 YPA on 110 targets), Brent Celek (8.7 YPA on 95 targets) and Vernon Davis (8.8 YPA on 93 targets).

Or one could compare Finley to Detroit Lions tight end Brandon Pettigrew's overall impact on his offense as ESPN NFC North blogger Kevin Seifert did when he nearly chose Pettigrew over Finley as his tight end on the 2011 All-NFC North team.

That makes six tight ends in the NFC who could make a case to be as good as or better than Finley, and that is before including Fred Davis in the discussion. If the AFC tight ends were added to the mix, Finley would have a tough time claiming a top-10 spot in the league at this position, and that is before the addition of two potentially very good NFL-caliber tight ends (Coby Fleener and Dwayne Allen) in the 2012 draft.

Another way of looking at this is to take heed of how Finley performed as compared with the Packers' other prime pass catchers.

Jordy Nelson (13.6), James Jones (11.4), Greg Jennings (10.1) and Donald Driver (8.7) all outpaced Finley in the YPA metric. That Finley couldn't top Driver, an aging wideout with diminishing skills that led to his worst reception and yardage totals in a decade, speaks volumes as to where he ranked in this pass-catching hierarchy.

The most obvious counterargument to all of this is to say that a team will not be paying Finley for what he has done in the past but rather for what he will do for them in the future.

However, most of the time the best predictor of future performance is past performance, and Finley has been around long enough to have a decent sample size to look at. When it comes to past performance, Finley's history in a nutshell is this: He was rarely used in his rookie campaign, posted a very good YPA (9.7) in his second year, had an injury-shortened third season and a mediocre fourth season.

There is no doubt he has the physical skills to be a dominant tight end, but so far that player has shown up only once in four seasons, and, oddly enough, that wasn't his contract year. He has also struggled with drops, as even Packers fans defensive about his performance have to admit.

All of this says that Finley is not worth a top-dollar contract, but as Seifert points out, even if the annual cost of the deal is high, the overall financial value stops well short of placing Finley at the top of the league in total guaranteed dollars for tight ends. Plus, the move allows the Packers to franchise backup quarterback Matt Flynn if they so desire.

What this likely means is that Green Bay general manager Ted Thompson is once again taking a high percentage approach to a player by not overpaying for potential. And that, more than any other part of this signing, should be a reason for Packers fans to feel euphoric about this deal.


KC Joyner, aka the Football Scientist, is a regular contributor to ESPN Insider. He also can be found on Twitter @kcjoynertfs and his web site. He is the author of an annual fantasy football draft guide, which is currently available, and "Blindsided: Why the Left Tackle is Overrated and Other Contrarian Football Thoughts."

 

[maniax]

Packers are a finesse team.

1) their O-line is not that great and with a great pass rush you can get to Rodgers.

2) their run game is not good.

3) their defense is not that good either.


I'm more scared of the Saints. I hope the Saints pony up big bucks to Brees and then lose Nicks and Colston. That's my #1 offseason wish.

 

[deep9er]

Packers are a finesse team.

1) their O-line is not that great and with a great pass rush you can get to Rodgers.

2) their run game is not good.

3) their defense is not that good either.


I'm more scared of the Saints. I hope the Saints pony up big bucks to Brees and then lose Nicks and Colston. That's my #1 offseason wish.

no disagreeing but wanted to say it reminded my of the '80's. this is how the 49ers were thought of....a finese team.

no NFL team is really complete so everyone has weaknesses. by the time we shore up the offense, we MAY have a hard time keeping THIS defense together? every year we'll see key free agents.