I’ve been pretty reluctant to buy in on signing Brendan
Albert. Yes, he’s an upgrade over Sowell. But I’d estimate the Cost/Production ratio is
rather high. I do not think we should
sign him and here are a number of reasons why.
1. $10M does not
properly reflect his overall value to a team.
The only reason I’d offer him close to $8M is because our LT is so
awful. (I’d rather give it to Anthony
Collins).
2. He is lazy when he
run blocks. He graded out okayish this
year on the run, again. (I’ll admit that his “laziness” could be due to playing
with an injured back. But isn’t that
still bad?)
3. He missed 4 games
last year with back issues. Big guys and
bad backs don’t mix.
4. He gets lots of
penalties: 2 illegal formations, ties
him for most in the league. 5 false
starts, 5th most in the league.
3 offensive holding calls, very middle of pack. And remember, this was only in 12 games. Project him at 16 games and you get 2.7 IF (1st),
6.7 FS (4th), 4 OH (top 40, negligibleish.
Remember this is out of 160 starters, which puts him in the top 25%)
5. He reaches when he
pass protects. (He also does it when he
run blocks). He’s very athletic so he
can compensate well, but he doesn’t use his feet correctly. That will hurt him against elite pass rushers
in a pass heavy offense.
6. His offense ran
tons of screen plays for an elite pass catching RB. (Charles had 104 targets. 1st
for RBs) They ran the ball a lot (top
ten in rush attempts, bottom ten in pass attempts). The defense was always on their heels because
of Charles, which gave him an advantage.
The combination of screens and runs might have masked his deficiencies
in pass protection.
7. In years past he
did not handle his contract situation like a professional. Going through the media was not wise. When we’re hearing him whine all the way in
AZ., something is wrong.
8. He just played in
a contract year, and even then he wasn’t elite.
9. Eric Fisher was
very shaky at RT before he got injured.
Even then, KC would rather go with Fisher than Albert at LT. That screams warning.
10. He was charged with 4.5 sacks allowed this season
(Washington Post). That projects to 6
sacks if he played 16 games (against a very middle of the pack division in
sacks: 13th, 18th, and 23rd). It’s certainly not bad, but for a guy
expecting to make his $10M PRIMARILY off of pass protection that is a sour
number. (Again, look at opponents and
type of offense)
For my money, I’d rather sign Collins. Sure, only one year to go on, but it was a
dang good year. Monroe
gave up a lot of sacks (8.5 and a new offense), but he’s still worth the money
over Albert.
