Prior to Ed’s recent post on the draft, I hadn’t realized Geronimo Allison is about to become a free agent. This poses quite a dilemma.
Who knows what we have in Geronimo? In three seasons, he’s managed to start eight games, get 55 catches, gain 758 yards, and score four touchdowns.
As his spare frame suggests, he’s pretty frail. He struggles mightily to gain separation, but he has compensated by making some acrobatic and contested catches. Then again, he’s dropped a number of easy ones. He also runs well after the catch.
His athleticism is inferior. That alone leads one to wonder if last year’s rookies have brighter long-term prospects. On the other hand, Aaron Rodgers has confidence in throwing his way.
Depending on how you make those assessments, the matter of how much and how long to pay him becomes harder still. Based on such uncertain potential – and an excess of average receivers already on the roster – do you lowball at, say, a 3-year deal at $1.5M per? Do you try to get him on a one-year deal, and see if he emerges at or near the top of the current logjam of receivers?
Part of one’s thinking has to be: are any other teams, especially those bottom-dwellers with huge chests of money, willing to sign him up for $3-4 million per year. If so, I’d say that’s game over for the Packers.
Geronimo, however, might just be thinking: I’ll never look as good, or play as much, on a team quarterbacked by someone other than Rodgers. If he were to turn down a low offer by the Pack, he could very easily be on no one’s roster when the season rolls around.
Maybe my numbers are way off, but it looks to me like the team, not this player, is in the driver’s seat here.
I am personally more interested in Jake Kumerow, who has the higher combine-type scores, and is 6’5” vs. 6’3”. Though Kumerow is a year older, he has less NFL game experience than does Geronimo. If things don’t work out, Kumerow could always go off-Broadway or on the road playing the lead in Jesus Christ Superstar.
That logjam I mentioned includes Geronimo, Kumerow, J’Mon Moore, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Equanimeous St. Brown, and, yes, Randall Cobb. Assuming the Packers draft another wide receiver in the first three rounds, and that Trevor Davis will not be retained, two or three of these six players will likely be looking elsewhere for work by September.
I always assume that deciding to keep or drop existing roster players is a jointly made decision. Winnowing down all these receivers is going to be one of GM Brian Gutekunst’s and Coach Matt LaFleur’s biggest challenges.
Or perhaps I should include Mr. Rodgers as one of the decision makers?