What Will it take for WFT to Sign Jonathan Allen Long-Term?

One of the more intriguing storylines of this off-season is whether or not Washington defensive tackle Jonathan Allen will reach a long-term deal with the only team he has ever known. 

The fifth-year Alabama product will play for the Burgundy and Gold on the final year of his rookie contract, which has watched him garner over 21M dollars over his first five seasons. 

After fulfilling his four year, 11M deal he signed as a rookie in 2017, Washington initiated the fifth-year option awarded to first round picks and locked in Allen for an additional season. 

At age 26, Allen will play the 2021 season for a little over 10M dollars, all fully guaranteed. 

Both Allen and the team have expressed interest in keeping the local product on the team long-term, and they both have incentives to strike a deal. Allen, who played ball at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, Virginia, feels an attachment to the area and even expressed this sentiment recently.

On a recent interview on SirusXM radio, Allen shared, “I want to be here. This is where I’m from, this is my hometown. I’ve always had the goal of playing with one team my whole career. I think I have a great opportunity to do that here.”

From the Washington perspective, Allen provides not only strong on the field play, but intangibles of locker room leadership. For the past two years, Allen has served as a team captain and a strong voice to a young, emerging team. 

Time and again he has showed supremely high expectations for himself, and for the program, as evidenced from the video excerpt below. Allen shares what it takes to improve the “culture”, and why the team shouldn’t be content with a 7-9 record: 

"7-9 is not what we're shooting for every year."

Defensive Tackle Jonathan Allen talked about building a winning culture and commented on his ongoing contract talks with the team @WashingtonNFL

👇 LISTEN HERE 👇 pic.twitter.com/5fXqDbTNqK

— SiriusXM NFL Radio (@SiriusXMNFL) June 22, 2021

So what will it take for Allen to sign with Washington long-term?

When diving into this exercise, there are several variables you have to consider. Generally speaking, NFL contracts are “relative” and based on players who have similar age, experience and production. Player position also has an impact on a player’s average annual salary as well.

Here is a graphic highlighting the highest paid defensive tackles in the NFL, what age they signed their contracts, and how much each contract was worth. For reference, AAV stands for Average Annual Value and is calculated by taking the total value of the contract and dividing it by length or term, and that number is applied to a team’s salary cap. 

As you see above, Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald is the NFL’s highest paid defensive tackle with an AAV of 22.5M, and rightfully so. He is arguably the best defensive player in the league, and is a six-time First-Team All-Pro. 

Allen will get nowhere near that money, and shouldn’t expect to. Although Allen is a solid piece, he lacks the rare (and most desirable) quality of an elite defensive tackle — game-changing pass rush ability. Allen can disrupt the pocket, but he has yet to show he can post double-digit sacks up like Darnold (career-high 20.5) and Chiefs DT Chris Jones (career-high 15.5). 

A fair comparison is Green Bay defensive tackle Kenny Clark, who shares many similarities to Allen.

When comparing the two, you see that Clark and Allen were both first-round selections and produced comparable sack numbers. Clark has missed seven games in his career, while Allen has missed one (if you exclude his injury during his rookie season). That year, he missed 11 games due to a Lisfranc injury, but has been largely healthy since. 

What Clark has to his advantage is his relative youth at the time of signing. At 24, Clark had a two-year advantage on Allen and was coming off a Pro Bowl season. He had great lobbying power while negotiating his contract in 2020. And although Clark has missed a handful of games due to knee sprains, etc. he doesn’t have the arthritic shoulder that potentially clouds Allen’s long-term future. 

But Allen has some advantages as well. For one, he has Clark’s contract as a reference, and generally speaking new contracts come in slightly higher than their predecessors.

The NFL’s salary cap is also expected to balloon over the next few seasons, with an impending TV contract that should reset the player market. And maybe most important, Allen is a favorite of Owner Daniel Snyder, meaning there will be a concentrated push to keep him in DC. 

Considering Clark’s AAV of 17.5M and Atlanta’s Grady Jarrett of 17M, I’d expect Allen to slot in somewhere between the two or slightly above. Jarrett was also 26 at the time of his signing, and was approaching a stature similar to Allen’s. In fact, since signing the contract, Jarrett has provided the Falcons two straight Pro Bowl Seasons in 2019 and 2020.

Therefore, taking these things into consideration, I’d expect Allen to sign a contract hovering around 4 years and 71M dollars. Making his AAV around 17.5M, slightly above Clark and Jarrett, but below the upper-tier of Deforest Buckner, Jones and Darnold. This would make Allen a top-five defensive tackle contract and provide fair-market value for both sides. 

Both Allen and Washington would like to get a deal done, and I’d expect the contract to be signed before the season starts, likely before training camp.

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