2021 NFL free agency preview: Could pandemic cash crunch impact OL Brandon Scherff?
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2021 NFL Free agency preview
Free agency begins March 17. Who are the best players available? And will the Dolphins make a play for them? We explore in this series of player profiles ahead of the league new year.
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Free agency begins March 17. Who are the best players available? And will the Dolphins make a play for them? We explore in this series of player profiles ahead of the league new year.
Brandon Scherff
2020 team: Washington Football Team.
Position: Offensive guard.
Age: 29.
2020 stats: Thirteen games (all starts), one holding penalty, one false start, three sacks allowed, 84.1 Pro Football Focus grade.
2020 salary: $15 million.
Market value (per Spotrac): Five years, $64 million.
Player summary: Because of the rise in the salary cap the past five years, offensive guards have been paid like tackles and tackles have been paid like quarterbacks. But the cap is going down in 2021, so is that pay scale sustainable? Put another way: Would the Washington Football team really again tag Scherff — who was a first-team all-pro and made his fourth Pro Bowl in 2020 despite missing three games with an MCL sprain — and pay him $18 million? Seems unlikely, even with an estimated $40 million in cap space.
Likelihood he joins the Dolphins: Low. While the Dolphins — who started three rookies on the line late in the season — will almost certainly sign a veteran interior lineman in March, Scherff is a luxury they probably cannot afford.
Quotable: “We’ve got four of those five [starting offensive linemen] right now tied up going forward. I’d love to see if we could get all five back again because it’s one less part of the team you’ll have to worry about as we start getting off to free agency and the draft.” — Washington Football Team coach Ron Rivera on Brandon Scherff.
This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 9:17 AM.
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