The Jaguars spent big money...but why?

One of the surprise big spenders in the first few days of free agency were the Jacksonville Jaguars.  After a 3-13 record in 2014, Jacksonville made a big splash early on in free agency by making Julius Thomas the highest paid Tight End in the NFL.  They also signed Jermey Parnell to a 5 year contract to help a league worst offensive line and committed $22 million to Jared Odrick, along with 3 other signings, to help their defense.  And the rumor continues that they are interested in signing Demarco Murray....

 Some experts are asking why the rush to sign high end players with a team that has so many holes to their roster and didn't have many bright spots last season.  It's my belief that losing breeds...well more losing.  The Jaguars invested a 3rd overall draft pick in quarterback Blake Bortles, along with a 2nd round pick on wide receiver Marquise Lee, and he had a very difficult season.  In order to continue his (and other young players') development and improve his confidence, it's best to improve the talent around him and help him gain confidence.

Let's start with Julius Thomas, a player who gained recognition playing with the Peyton Manning-led Denver Broncos.  The 26 year old had 12 receiving touchdowns in back-to-back seasons and the advanced stats paint a picture that Jacksonville fans may not be happy with.  A player can be evaluated by his contributions to the team winning with a statistic entitled Win Probability Added defined below.

An individual player’s WPA is the sum of the WPA of the plays in which that player was directly involved. Being directly involved is defined as an offensive player who ran, threw, or kicked the ball, was targeted by a pass, or flagged for a penalty.  Thanks to Advanced Football Analytics.

Thomas was 29th amongst tight ends with 6 or more games played in WPA per game last season with a 0.02 WPA added per game (for a total of 0.24 wins added).  In a basic fashion, That means that Julius Thomas' contributions on the field contributed only to 0.24 of Denver's wins. During the 2013 season however, Julius Thomas added 1.21 Win Probablity (or 0.09 per game).  There are two arguments to be made here, that counter each other.  One would be that the amount of targets for Peyton Manning in Denver including Emmanuel Sanders (0.15 WPA/G), Demaryius Thomas (0.10 WPA/G), along with the emergence of CJ Anderson (0.05 WPA/G) meant that Julius had a lesser overall impact in 2014.  The other argument could be made that it's because of this talent that he was able to get open for so many catches and touchdowns.

This Jacksonville offense had only three players (Toby Gerhart, Lee and tight end Clay Harbor)  with positive WPA, something unsurprising for a 3 win team.  Thomas immediately bring another competent target for a young quarterback who threw more interceptions than touchdowns.  It will also be interesting to see if they utilize Clay Harbor or Mercedes Lewis in two tight end sets  and Julius Thomas...

Jacksonville will be an interesting team to watch throughout this off-season and into the regular season, in the end, the most important thing will be to develop their franchise quarterback.  Signing a good pass-catching tight end and improving their line should help keep him on the field making positive plays and gaining confidence.