Based on last season at least, Garrard is a total stud who is well worth the money. His performance in the playoffs was especially impressive.

Garrard is unfairly stuck with the "Game Manager" label because the Jag-You-Ares have two good running backs, even though their had a great year in 2007. I think this is a great deal for the Jaguars though, considering the WRs he has and the success despite that, I think Garrard is a step above Romo who got a very similar deal.

I think it's a good deal for the Jags. Garrard is a pretty good QB but I think he will regress a bit this year. A lot of Garrard's value was that he didn't throw a lot of interceptions but I think that low total was a bit of a fluke. I didn't see many Jags games (so take this with a grain of salt) but in the games a saw Garrard benefited from a lot of dropped INTs.

As a Colt fan I am happy with this. DG is good, but I suspect 2008 will be his regression year. I'd prefer if they kept Leftwich, but you know, can't have everything....

As a Titans fan, I say it's now time for David Garrard to show 2007 was a Tartabull-esque contract year fluke, and he can now revert to making the stupid mistakes he made in 2006.

It looks like a big contract for a guy with just over a seasons' worth of work, but if that's market rate....

If he follows last year with anything similar then the Jags will be very happy. As a Miami fan, I dream of having this sort of dilemma.

james, i feel your pain.

"with the ninth pick in the 2007 nfl draft, the miami dolphins select..."

A few years ago a lot of writers were wondering why Garrard re-upped with the Jags when he could probably have bolted for more cash elsewhere as a quality backup.

He showed loyalty to the team that had faith in him, and now the team is repaying that loyalty...

:: andrew — 4/7/2008 @ 3:11 pm
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Excuse me to spoil your romantic mood there, but I think he got his money because of what he showed on the field last year.

#7

Don't do that again. Please? It still hurts, and will continue to do so until Ginn becomes Marvin Harrison, John Beck becomes Peyton Manning and Brady Quinn becomes Ryan Leaf. And if all that happens, I'm a 1st ballot Hall-of-Famer.

I think Andrew's point is that Garrard is a high-character player. A team is going to be more willing to dust off the wallet for a guy who keeps his nose-clean, doesn't bitch, and can be a locker-room leader, than say, an equivalently skilled player who is a total twit.

I do like Garrard a lot, but I think he'll regress a bit even if it's just to the mean. He had a record-low number of interceptions, and I have a hard time thinking that's a sustainable rate.

I don't know what to make of Garrard. In the first 130 ('02-04) passes of his career, he threw 3 picks. In '05, he threw 1 in 168. In '06, he threw 9 in 241. In his first 8 games of '07, he threw 0 picks in 209 passes. In the remaining 6 games he played, he threw 6 picks in 160 passes.

What is responsible for these huge swings in interception rate? I'm inclined to believe, since bad-Garrard only has an INT rate of about 3.75%, that its due to random fluctuation. But is it a case where Garrard is throwing interceptable passes all the time, and DBs are just holding on, or is it that he's facing more talented players who are making plays?

I don't know, but I also suspect the Jaguars really don't know either. And unless they do have a good answer, this isn't a good contract.

I figure that Garrard regresses to the mean a fair amount on the interceptions in 2008, but he has always been a good protector of the football, 2006 notwithstanding. From 2002-2005, he threw 298 passes and only had 4 interceptions. Do an interception rate, and that's a highly impressive 1.34%.

Even his 2006 season, where he threw 9 interceptions, isn't all that bad. He also threw 241 passes that season, and that makes for only a 3.73% interception rate. Don't get me wrong, that's definitely above his career average, but it's not that bad. Roughly one interception per thirty passing attempts isn't bad. And even in that year, he wasn't exactly throwing a bunch of dink and dunk passes, he first 10th in the league in yards per attempt.

I don't think it's a bad deal. Garrard is a good player, great in the locker room, a true team leader, plus he's effective with his legs too. He got a big deal, but in all honesty he got less money than Tony Romo go a year ago, and in all fairness Garrard has a much larger body of work to evaluate than the Cowboys had when they gave Romo his contract extension.

14:

In 2006, he also threw a lot of those INTs in 2 games, KC and Tenn (easily the worst game of his career...Jax Defense holds Tenn to 3 points and the team loses), which cost Jax the playoffs. I don't think he's really fluctuated THAT widely, but rather just had a handful of bad games. Even Tom Brady has the occasional 4-Int game, no?

I want to go a bit more on Romo v. Garrard. My basic premise is that Romo received a bigger deal last year than Garrard did this year, despite the fact that Garrard has a much larger body of work, and moreover Garrard's body of work as a whole might even be slightly more impressive.

In late October of 2007, Romo signed a six year contract for 67.5 million dollars, and 31 million dollars guaranteed. In April of 2008, Garrard signed a seven year contract for 60 million dollars and 20 million guaranteed. If you break it down on a yearly average basis, Romo got 11.25 million per year (5.16 guaranteed) in 2007, while a year later Garrard got "just" 8.5 million per year (3.33 million guaranteed).

Bottom line, if you look at the numbers, the Jaguars signed Garrard for considerably less money than Tony Romo got last year from the Cowboys.

The other interesting note is that Garrard has a larger body of work to analyze, and thus isn't quite the X-factor that Romo still was (to a degree, anyway) when he got his deal.

When Romo signed his deal in late October of 2007, he had started just 18 games and thrown just 676 passes. This comes after being with the Cowboys organization for only four years. On the other hand, when Garrard signed his deal, he had started well over 30 games while throwing almost 900 passes. This all came after spending six years in the Jaguars organization.

And you might even be able to argue that Garrard has performed better. Romo has a bit higher QB rating, but he also has more offensive weapons than Garrard to throw to -- T.O., Witten, etc. Moreover, Garrard makes a good bit of plays with his legs that Romo doesn't, which isn't accounted for in the QB rating formula.

At the very least, I think you have to say that Romo and Garrard have been highly similar players in terms of production and career paths, and if you use Romo's contract as a baseline, the Jaguars signed Garrard for significantly less. That's a good value contract to me for the Jags.

While it is definitely unlikely that he will throw more ints, he will probably still be good at not throwing picks. That does not mean that he will 'regress' in fact he is likely to continue to improve with more experience, right?

Re #13: Obviously, Garrad has a nice case of "odd-year-itis". I forget who originally had this disease... a bunch of baseball players (one was a Mariner) and a few footballers. Somebody else with a better memory can chime in with details.

When Leftwich was cut, the local media made it sound like Byron was the favorite in the locker room. Leftwich was more street, whereas Garrard was considered aloof. I don't know, that might just have been Fred Taylor's opinion. Garrard is actually a freak of nature, what with the chronic illness that cost him 25 pounds a couple of offseasons ago, still playing at 260 pounds. Decision-making has always been a strength of his, but, as other posters have observed, he's due for some regression from last year's interception total. He's very good, but not quite elite

re 18: I think it was Warren Sapp, great one year, fat the next.

Regarding historic INTs and bad games (Even Peyton Manning had a 6 INT game last year when he averaged 10 in the previous 3 seasons!), I'd look at the specific game situations for Garrard--was the #1 or #2 WR out? The RB safety valve? The LT? These can all affect a single bad game for INTs.

Taking Manning's 6 INT game last year, he was missing WR #1, LT, RT, and TE if I recall. Plus it was raining. Plus they were losing, so his last INT was a Hail Mary heave-ho. So if Garrard's 2 worst games ever were like that, I'd throw those games out as non-representative.

I still think he's likely to regress, and not just on INTs but also on completion percentage, YPA, etc.

Bobman, Anthony Gonzalez was out too. If I recall correctly, Devin Aromashadu actually started.

It was also the first game Cromartie started, and the game plan seemed to be what it was passing wise for the previous few games: Don't throw to Jammer's side unless the guy is rather open or there is a zone exchange.

Cromartie generally LOOKS like he isn't covering a guy as closely as Jammer on most plays, but he has the ability to close the gap, leap 40 inches, or dive and snatch a ball out of the air to make up for it. Two of his interceptions were incredible individual plays that just aren't going to happen to Manning again.

Not only was Manning's 6 INT game a fluke because his team was facing some injuries, but his opponent's ability was underestimated in the game plan.

Brian Griese did it too #18 and #20 but I am pretty sure he was good in even years? May be wrong though

Re #18
I'm pretty sure it was Bret Saberhagen, if you're trying to think of pitchers. Orel Hershiser also had a similar pattern for a while, being awesome every third year.

3rd highest passer rating in the league !?!?

Give him Manning money!

The Manning game: additionally, there were some bizarre random miscues like receivers running the wrong routes and strange tipped balls.

The point is that none of these things seemed to happen to Garrard last year, and many of them are entirely luck on his part.

Oh, but let me make this clear:

Having a quarterback who doesn't suck is the single most important thing a football team can spend its cap money on. This is a solid move.

Matt Hasselbeck is another odd-years-only player.

This is a good deal for the Jags, but I don't think Garrard's as good as Romo. Aside from the ints total screaming "fluke", he just doesn't have the phenomenal ability to elude rushers that Romo does. Dallas's ASR was 4.5% last year, to Jacksonville's 6.9%, but I honestly believe that the Jags have a significantly better offensive line. Only Roethlisberger is plausibly harder to sack than Romo.

". A lot of Garrard’s value was that he didn’t throw a lot of interceptions but I think that low total was a bit of a fluke"

I agree. From what I've seen of him, I think this is WAY too much money.

he's good, yes, but he's getting a lot of the "Purple Jesus/Tavaris" effect, where teams are stacking to stop the run, and hes throwing against base sets all the time.