Gesicki’s future now a question. The pros and cons and financial and other issues in play
Part 3 of a 10-part series discussing issues at various Miami Dolphins’ positions.
On Tuesday, NFL teams can begin using a franchise or transition tag on impending free agents, a window that closes March 8. For the Dolphins, that means decisions loom on tight end Mike Gesicki and defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah, who stand atop the list of the team’s impending unrestricted free agents.
But Mike McDaniel’s hiring raises this question: Is Gesicki a good enough fit in this offense to justify paying him more than $10 million a year?
Keep in mind that McDaniel has coached in systems that prioritize blocking skills in tight ends. But his teams also have utilized exceptional pass-catching tight ends, as the 49ers did with George Kittle.
Gesicki is one of the league’s best receiving tight ends; last season, he was fifth among tight ends in receptions with 73 and eighth in yards with 790. But Gesicki is considered in the bottom tier of blockers at his position.
In terms of how he has been utilized by the Dolphins, Gesicki is more of a wide receiver than a tight end, even though the Dolphins have always identified him as the latter. (More on that in a minute.)
For perspective, consider that Gesicki was asked to pass block on just 11 of his 827 snaps last season. Among tight ends, only Baltimore’s Mark Andrews played more snaps (934) with fewer pass blocking assignments (nine).
Conversely, Kittle — who worked with McDaniel in San Francisco the past several years — pass blocked on 70 plays last season.
What about run blocking?
Kittle had the second most run blocking snaps among all tight ends last season, with 449. Gesicki ranked 34th with 234.
Tight end Durham Smythe, also an impending free agent, had far more pass blocking snaps that Gesicki (90 to 11) and far more run blocking snaps than Gesicki (322 to 234). Those 90 pass blocking snaps were the third most among NFL tight ends.
And Smythe is a competent blocker and improved receiver, suggesting he has a chance to return next season unless the Dolphins target what they believe is a better version of Smythe.
Adam Shaheen, who is under contract with the Dolphins next season, had 45 pass blocking snaps and 162 run blocking snaps last season.
Pro Football Focus ranked Gesicki just 61st as a pass blocker among 70 tight ends (it’s difficult to judge off just 11 snaps) and 63rd as a run blocker. PFF ranked him 21st among 70 tight ends last season based on the overall quality of his work.
So might McDaniel have a role for a tight end who doesn’t block particularly well? The initial instinct here would be to say no, but McDaniel also has spoken of fitting an offense around players’ strengths, while maintaining his core principles. So it wouldn’t be shocking if the Dolphins kept him.
And McDaniel has worked with coaches who asked some tight ends to block very little. As Dolphins blogger Chris Kouffman noted, Jordan Cameron pass blocked just 34 times the one season when McDaniel coached receivers with Cleveland. Jacob Tamme pass blocked 74 times when McDaniel was an offensive assistant with Atlanta.
The question becomes this: With Gesicki’s limitations as a blocker, do his receiving numbers — which rank among the top five tight ends in the league during the past two years — justify, say, a four-year, $44 million contract or a $10.8 million franchise tag? A case could be made either way.
The franchise tag for tight ends is expected to fall in the $10.8 million range. The tag for wide receivers is $19.1 million, and Gesicki lined up as a receiver far more than as a traditional tight end last year.
There’s also this dynamic in play: If Gesicki and agent Jimmy Sexton attempt to try to prove to an arbitrator that he should be listed as a receiver and not a tight end, precedent suggests that Gesicki faces long odds to achieve that outcome. And it would be highly improbable to believe the Dolphins would give franchise-tag wide receiver money, if they keep him at all.
In 2015, then-New Orleans Saints star Jimmy Graham — who, like Gesicki, had always been identified as a tight end on NFL rosters — filed a grievance and requested to officially be declared a wide receiver under the NFL’s franchise-tag rules.
Graham cited the fact that he lined up either in the slot or out wide on 67 percent of his snaps the previous season as justification for his request.
But arbitrator Stephen Burbank agreed with New Orleans, who said the tight end position has always involved a combination of splitting out wide to run routes and staying in to block.
Gesicki, by comparison, has lined up either in the slot or out wide even more than Graham did that year.
Gesicki was in the slot or out wide on 85 percent of his snaps this past season, per Pro Football Focus.
Per PFF’s Ryan Smith, Gesicki lined up only 99 snaps at tight end, 252 out wide, 453 in the slot and 23 in the backfield. In 2020, Gesicki played only 123 snaps at tight end, per Smith.
As ESPN.com’s Mike Triplett explained at the time of the Graham ruling: “Graham and the NFLPA were banking on the notion that Burbank would assign a more literal definition to the wording in the collective bargaining agreement, which states that the franchise-tag designation is based on the position ‘at which the franchise player participated in the most plays during the prior league year.’
“Ultimately, Burbank ruled that Graham was officially lining up at the position of tight end either when he was against the line or when he was flexed out into the slot ‘at least if such alignment brought him within four yards of [the nearest offensive] lineman.’
So that precedent would work against Gesicki if Sexton quickly were to pursue that course.
Triplett noted in his ESPN.com that “the evidence that appeared to weigh most heavily into Burbank’s decision was that Graham was often defended as a tight end even when he lined up in the slot (i.e., by a linebacker or a strong safety).”
Burbank mentioned testimony from Saints coach Sean Payton, who said, “When our receivers are lined up widest in formations, they are never covered by safeties or linebackers ever. ... Never ever ever ever ever does a linebacker match up with a wide receiver ever.”
Even though Gesicki said recently that he’s seldom covered by a linebacker, he was covered by safeties or linebackers on 78 of his 109 targets, per my analysis using metrics from PFF.
Conversely, he was covered by cornerbacks on just 31 of those targets —- a fact that would work against Gesicki if he files a grievance asking to be proclaimed a wide receiver.
In fact, there was only one game this season (versus Houston) in which more than half of Gesicki’s targets came against a cornerback, per PFF.
According to Triplett, “Burbank also dismissed a number of arguments from the Saints and the NFL’s side as being absolute definitions, as well — including the arguments that Graham was drafted as a tight end, works with tight ends in practice, has earned postseason awards as a tight end, is listed on the roster as a tight end and even that he refers to himself as a tight end in social media.”
Everything ultimately worked out fine for Graham. Thirteen days after the arbitrator’s ruling, the Saints and Graham agreed on a four-year deal with $21 million guaranteed and a total value of $40 million over four years, making Graham the highest-paid tight end in the league at the time.
If the Dolphins want to keep Gesicki, he could command an annual salary close to Baltimore’s Andrews ($14 million), Philadelphia’s Dallas Goedert ($14.3 million) or the $12.5 million that the Patriots gave Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith last offseason.
“If you go out there and you make plays and you do what’s asked of you, then you get what you deserve,” Gesicki said in January.
“I think that you are entitled to what you deserve in this league,” Gesicki said regarding rich contracts given to other tight ends over the past year. “That’s what those guys have gotten, and I’m happy for them. And their success, and their bank accounts.”
The Dolphins have until March 8 to decide whether to use the franchise or transition tag on Gesicki or Ogbah. The Dolphins likely would prefer to reach a multi-year extension with Ogbah than give him the tag, which would result in a $20.1 million salary and cap hit for 2022.
Presuming the Dolphins don’t use the franchise tag on Gesicki, they also have the option of using the transition tag, which allows a team the first right of refusal to match any offer given to the player during free agency. Each NFL team can apply up to one transition or franchise tag per season.
If a player is given the transition tag, he can still negotiate a contract with a new team in free agency. But if that team offers a deal, the team that tagged him can choose to match that offer and retain him.
The transition tag for tight ends is expected to be $9.3 million. The Dolphins also could opt to instead use either tag on Ogbah or not use it at all.
And if the Dolphins conclude they want a more well-rounded traditional tight end, they better have an idea how to adequately replace the matchup advantage and receiving yardage that Gesicki has given them for four years.
Here’s part 1 of the series on Tua Tagovailoa.
Here’s part 2 of the series on Dolphins’ wide receivers.
Coming next: Potential options to replace Gesicki.
This story was originally published February 21, 2022 at 2:03 PM.
