Proposed move to center significantly lowers Jonah Jackson’s value

When the Los Angeles Rams made an unexpected left turn to sign a pricey guard in free agency, the move was met with almost universal praise by fans who had long asked for upgrades on the interior of the offensive line. Combined with re-signing Kevin Dotson, the Rams made a concerted effort and major commitment to their two guard positions, paying them the sixth-highest and eighth-highest guard salaries in the NFL. But Sean McVay’s recent announcement that L.A. is leaning towards moving Jackson to center puts Jackson’s contract in serious danger of going from an overpay to a massive overpay.

That’s the basis of how the NFL salary cap system works: You are paid based on the average salaries at the position you’re being paid to play. If the league had viewed Jackson as a center in March, then a $17 million per year contract is not what he would have been paid six months ago.

Jonah Jackson paid as a guard

The Rams signed Jonah Jackson to a three-year, $51 million contract and $25.5 million fully guaranteed, up to $34 million total guaranteed. In other terms, Jackson’s contract could be construed as a two-year deal that will pay Jackson $34 million: $17 million in salary and a $17 million signing bonus.

The league hasn’t really shown much, if any favoritism to players depending on if they play left guard or right guard:

On the left side, Landon Dickerson ($21) and Quenton Nelson ($20) make the most, while on the right side it’s Chris Lindstrom ($20.5) and Robert Hunt ($20). And other than Nelson probably, everyone basically agrees that these players are already overpaid. Hunt did the best job of taking advantage of a dearth of available guards in free agency, convincing the Panthers to pay him a five-year, $100 million deal with $44 million fully guaranteed because Carolina has not been a desirable relocation destination.

Overall, Jonah Jackson was cited all offseason as L.A.’s new left guard and that would make him tied with Elgton Jenkins as the third-highest paid left guard by annual salary, with the sixth-best full guarantee, and the fourth-best total guarantee. There are four more players on the right side who make more per year than Jackson, and three who got a better guarantee than Jackson.

At $17 million per season, the 27-year-old Jackson is an acceptable extravagance, even though he has also missed nine games with injury (three due to a finger injury though) in the past two seasons.

But at center, Jonah Jackson would have completely destroyed the market…if Creed Humphrey hadn’t already done that himself this month.

Jonah Jackson paid as center

The top-two tiers at centers are: Creed Humphrey and then a group of four players lumped close together between $12-$13.5 million per season. If it were not for Humphrey’s extension, that would be Jackson as the NFL’s lone wolf center making over $14 million per season.

For Jackson to be moved to center, his contract now becomes the second-highest center contract in the NFL and $3.5 million more per season than third place Frank Ragnow.

Ragnow’s deal is for sure outdated (he signed a four-year, $54 million extension in 2021) and he will challenge Humphrey to become the highest-paid center in history, but right now he’s trailing Jonah Jackson by a lot: Jackson makes 26% more per season and he got almost as much money guaranteed despite signing a contract that is one year shorter than Ragnow’s.

In case you were unaware, either Ragnow or Humphrey is considered to be the best center in the NFL now that Jason Kelce is retired. Ragnow has made the Pro Bowl in three of the last four years (was injured in 2021) and Jackson got a first hand look at his value as his teammate with the Lions. Humphrey has made the Pro Bowl in the last two years, and he finished third in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting in 2021 despite playing center.

The battle to be first team All-Pro with Kelce out of the way is expected to come down to Humphrey and Ragnow.

And then there’s Jackson—who makes almost as much as Humphrey and a lot more than Ragnow—has not made the Pro Bowl as a center. Because Jackson hasn’t made a game as a center. He doesn’t play center. Other than 24 snaps in 2021 when Ragnow was hurt, he has not been an NFL center.

Except for the fact that if McVay goes through with this move, Jackson will be the second-highest paid center in NFL history.

It’s not that the Rams shouldn’t move Jonah Jackson to center because it will dramatically decrease his value. It’s that if the Rams knew that Steve Avila could not be their starting center, then they probably would have signed someone else and he would have been much less expensive.

The road not traveled

Paying one guard $17 million and another guard $16 million per season is part of the business and it showed that L.A. desperately wanted to have a top-tier interior offensive line for Kyren Williams and Matthew Stafford. And they still very well might have that because Avila-Jackson-Dotson should be a quality trio regardless of where they stand.

However, you still aren’t allowed to call it “smart business” to pay a player a market-setting contract for a position when he has never played that position in the NFL before.

The top center in free agency this year, Lloyd Cushenberry, signed a four-year, $50 million contract to go from the Broncos to the Titans. If the Rams wanted to sign a center, they could have paid Cushenberry the exact same amount that they paid Jackson, but would have had him for four years instead of three…and Cushenberry is a center.

Too cheap for Cushenberry? The Commanders signed Tyler Biadasz to a three-year, $30 million contract. The Rams would be paying Biadasz a $4.4 million cap hit this year (Jackson’s 2024 cap hit is $13.6 million), a $9.2 million cap hit next year (Jackson’s is $14.6), and a $11 million cap hit in 2026 (Jackson’s is $22.6 million).

So just remember that as you’re typing the comment “None of this matters whatsoever”, the Rams won’t have an extra $10 million in 2024, $5 million in 2025, and $11 million in 2026 because they signed a center (with no experience there since early in his college days) over an experience center who is the same age as Jackson.

Photo by Ric Tapia/Getty Images

The Raiders re-upped Andre James to a three-year, $24 million contract, less than half as much as Jackson’s deal. At $8 million per season, James is the seventh-highest paid center in the NFL. That makes him like the Jonah Jackson of centers.

And the fact of the matter is that a lot of teams get away with (and excel) with centers making $5 million per season or less.

The Seahawks just signed Connor Williams, a center who many said was on his way to a sure Pro Bowl season prior to tearing his ACL last year, for $4 million. Though Williams was cheap only because of his injury history (Williams is practicing and expected to be ready for the second, if not the first game of the season), would it have been a bad idea for the Rams to test the waters at $4 million than to spend $51 million for a player at the same position with no real experience there?

If the Rams really liked Williams and he had stayed healthy, they could have just given him the $51 million in 2025. Then the Rams would essentially get a center for four years and $54 million instead of only three years and $51 million.

You can criticize the team without criticizing the player

There’s nothing I can do to avoid some fans thinking that I’m criticizing Jackson, and I totally understand why it could be misconstrued this way, but I want to make it abundantly clear for the second time that this article is not criticizing Jonah Jackson. It’s not saying that the Rams desire to have an elite interior offensive line is ruined by keeping Avila at left guard and moving Jackson to center.

By all accounts, an interior of Avila-Jackson-Dotson is not only as good as the other way around, it’s supposedly BETTER because McVay wouldn’t do it if it didn’t make the offensive line better than what they thought they were going to do when they signed Jackson.

However, just because the Rams got the players that they wanted for a certain group, that doesn’t mean that we are not allowed to call out flaws or mistakes in the process. If we do not call it out, are they not doomed to keep making the same mistakes?

If the Rams had signed Jackson to the same three-year, $51 million contract in March, and then immediately announced that they were moving him to center, people would have FLIPPED OUT over paying an inexperienced player the most money in the history of the position and 26% more than arguably the best center in the entire NFL and completely destroyed the position market.

Players are paid based on their position. That’s how the franchise tag works (although the tag is completely whacked out at offensive line because all five positions are group as one, which they shouldn’t be) and that’s how negotiations between teams and agents work. Not sometimes. ALL TIMES. It’s always a negotiation based on the player’s position. Jackson’s agent must be feeling awesome about himself now because he didn’t get his played a top-10 guard contract. Now he got him a top-2 center contract. It would be like paying Jalen Ramsey $22 million per season and then immediately moving him to safety.

If the Rams had said they were looking for a center in free agency, fans would have said “Great, there’s Cushenberry, there’s Biadasz, there’s Williams” and the team would have saved $5, $7, or even more than $10 million per year. That’s not nothing, that’s the difference between a bad starter and a good starter, if not two good starters.

Having Jonah Jackson with Steve Avila and Kevin Dotson is good football. But the way that the Rams have gone about it is bad business.