Jansen Out; We Talk Offensive Line

Multiple sources, beginning with Cindy Boren of the Washington Post, report that the Redskins have released RT Jon Jansen. As of this posting, Jansen is in contract negotiations to join the Detroit Lions. Jansen is from Michigan and went to Michigan for college ball.This move neither helps nor hurts the Redskins win next year and in the future. That seems a good of place as any to start. Jansen very well might have been the best RT the team had on the roster, but he was also the oldest by far, and the team isn't missing anything that they can't replace by letting Jansen go. Jansen was still a good performer against mediocre talent, but couldn't keep up with the fastest players in the game anymore. His effort last year was sometimes lacking, but overall, he put in his best season since 2006.Really, the issue with Jansen began back before the 2007 season when he was awarded a new 5 year contract from the team after appearing in 31 of the teams 32 regular season games over the 2005 and 2006 seasons. Jansen missed all of 2004, suffering a season ending injury in the Hall of Fame game, as up until that point, he had been in the prime seasons of his career. So the team could be excused for giving a 5 year extension to a 31 year old player who missed only one season with a catastrophic injury, and then one game in December of a lost season. That was the only game Jansen had missed in any season since 1999, save 2004. And with the team strapped for cap space, someone had to get the extension.But Jansen was two years into a deal he signed in 2005, so this was more of a restructuring than an extension (the Redskins added a year to the deal), and it didn't save the Redskins a great deal of money under the cap at the time. It was just sort of a perplexing vote of confidence for Jansen, who, if the team was lucky, would have had one more season at his current level of performance before age inevitably forced his decline. If you'll remember, the 2007 Redskins went all of mini camp thinking that Todd Wade of all people would fill the hole at LG created by the departure of Derrick Dockery. That would have been an excellent time to restructure Jansen's contract to extend his career at Guard, and then move him over to the left side and fill that hole. But the team, at the time, was convinced that he and Samuels would be bookend tackles for the foreseeable future.That was two years ago.Jansen broke his leg in Week 1 of 2007, and missed the remainder of the season. If the Redskins could have been justified in rewarding Jansen prior to 2007, a 31 year old tackle who breaks his ankle should send up a red flag to all involved that the team needs a backup plan. If nothing else, the team found Stephon Heyer that year, as he exceeded expectations on a team that slugged through it's difficult schedule, making the playoffs by the slimmest of margins. So it's the offseason. You've found a promising tackle prospect who is 23, just one season following a major extension to your current right tackle. He's probably not better than the incumbent, but he's eight years younger, and basically free in the eyes of the salary cap for the next two seasons. What do you do with the incumbent?If you answered, "guarantee him his base salary for 2008, and spread it out over the life of the deal," then you've earned a job with the Redskins Front Office! If there was any question about who would start at right tackle for the Redskins the following season, it was answered on that day. The Redskins freed up 3 million dollars in cap space with the move, which was more valuable to the team then figuring out who would block for Jason Campbell that season. Of course, Jim Zorn's first move of significance with the team was establishing that Stephon Heyer, not Jon Jansen would be the opening day starter at RT. This likely was not the correct personnel decision, as Jansen would start 11 games at RT last year, but it shows the rift between the people who make the contract decisions, and the head coach within this organization. Let me show you the difference that guaranteed salary made on the 2009 salary cap situation:Jon Jansen, 2009 cap hit given no restructure in 2008: $2.0 million (Net Cap Relief +$1.3 million)Jon Jansen, 2009 cap hit: $6.0 million (Net Cap Relief -$2.7 million)Put simply, you simply don't make that restructure unless you are convinced that Jansen will have value to your team through the next three seasons or so.Fast forward to today.The Redskins will not have a problem eating the cap hit. They have plenty of unused cap space that they lucked into, in fact, you could say that the Jansen release is a product of having more cap space than expected, and that the team is simply being opportunistic by getting rid of a player who is in neither their current or future plans now, and giving him a chance to go play elsewhere. From that perspective, the Jansen release is a good, if not a great move. But you don't have to be great at reading between the lines to conclude that prior to this week--when the cap increased by one million dollars per some fine print in the CBA--the Redskins felt like they needed to keep Jansen on the roster not because they felt he could help this team win this year, but because releasing him was going to hurt the team's ability to win more than it could help it.Good teams don't find themselves in this situations, when they are essentially stuck with a player on their roster who they are disenchanted with. And you also have a human resources problem. Jon Jansen is not just a likable guy, he perhaps defined more than any other player what fans call a "True Redskin." And even if Jim Zorn feels that he can do better at RT than Jansen, he always reserves the right to make the move that will benefit the team. You just can't spend an offseason getting a player to re-define his role into a super-utility lineman, telling him that he's going to be valuable to the team in his role, and then cast him to the side when it becomes financially feasible to do so. It's just bad management, especially for a player with Jansen's history here.The Redskins will probably find a better use for Jansen's roster spot than using him as a backup interior lineman. Probably. The issue that the Redskins make important decisions on the margin and only when a contract forces them to do so isn't going away. The time to decide Jansen is in decline is before you give him a new contract, and before you guarantee his salary as a signing bonus, not when you find you CAN release him. Jim Zorn made the call to cut Jansen, but the Redskins organization has not treated Jansen well since last offseason, and worst of all, appears to be scapegoating him for issues on the OL that still exist.Jansen will be happier backing up in Detroit than he would have been here. It never should have reached that point though.2009 Offensive LineThe team was not planning on using Jon Jansen anyway, so the most significant result of his release is that it opens up another spot on the roster for a younger player to win in training camp.The Redskins will keep 9 lineman. They have no word yet on G Pete Kendall's intentions to sign with the team, but absent him coming back to the team, you have to like UDFA C Edwin Williams' opportunity to win the backup C job. As of right now, you have Heyer firmly entrenched as the starter at RT. He is backed up by reclamation project Mike Williams, and FA signing G/T Jeremy Bridges, with practice squad member Devin Clark behind him. That's a 2/3 deal in terms of making the team. Right now, it's up to Williams to prove he belongs in football, and then Clark could be sent to the practice squad for the second straight year. Heyer also happens to be the backup LT, so this position is not only of relevance if Heyer gets hurt, but also if Samuels missing time causes the team to move Heyer over to LT.Assuming Bridges makes the team, which is still an assumption at this point, he would likely handle backup duty at RG as well as RT. That leaves one available spot, backup LG, at which the front runner is last year's third round pick, Chad Rinehart. Rinehart's job security is threatened by the chance that the team brings Pete Kendall back for veteran depth. Kendall is also able to handle Center, so Edwin Williams becomes a practice squad candidate if Kendall signs. There's a lot of uncertainty here, but Jansen's release helps sort things out a bit, even as the situation was mismanaged.