That's weird...oh wait, his agent is Drew Rosenhaus. Awesome. Talk about a thriving agent business. It's a wonder Drew doesn't relocate his headquarters to Washington. All he has to do is sign Redskins' backups to represent and he will always have a payday on the horizon.
Listen, I like Demetric Evans. I think his value to our team is pretty high. In the Washington Times article today, the Drew Rosenhaus effect begins. I love these through-the-media negotiations that Rosenhaus clients are famous for...scratch that...replace 'love' with 'would rather slam my nuts in the door than listen to'.
It's contract time and he 'wants to be a starter'. Yet, even he, at the end of the article, admits that HE WAS A STARTER LAST YEAR. Thank you Jebus! Obviously it is a money grab. (Spoiler alert: Rosenhaus client makes a play for a lucrative contract.)
He is going to be 30 years old next season. He has been a heck of a contributor to our defense in his role as a fill-in at end and tackle. We can not only use him, we probably need him. After all, he is pretty solid against the run, and I think it was Dallas that finally figured out if you attack our undersized ends every single play (Carter and Taylor), you can run all day against us.
But can we devote resources to this guy--starter salary-type resources? Iffy. Our defensive line is exactly where we need to be putting our resources. A guy that fits into our system at multiple spots with proven results is a good place to start. Yet age continues to be a problem on the line of scrimmage for us (both sides of the ball). Getting younger should be a primary goal. With a decision on Philip Daniels and Jason Taylor on the way, we could probably stall on the Evans' matter. For the purpose of this discussion, I am going to operate under the assumption we draft a DE at #13 (let's say Orakpo). If Daniels and Taylor are gone, I propose we re-sign Evans, start him and the rookie at the end spots, and move Carter back to LB. If Taylor comes back and Daniels is gone, we should lowball Evans, start the rookie and Taylor at the ends and move Carter to LB. We still have Chris Wilson and Rob Jackson to throw to the wolves out there at the end spots as backups right?
We also have to spend some dough to keep Golston and Montgomery, which to me are higher priorities than Evans, even though the two young tackles are restricted free agents.
Bottom line, I want Evans back, but not under a stupid contract that wraps up cap space we should be using on younger guys in the next couple of years. Unfortunately, Vinny's desk drawer has only one kind of contract template, which comes standard with an extra 2 years of length that make no sense, an extra $7 million to spread out over those extra 2 years, and requires a mandatory restructuring at the end of every year during the contract.