Reaction to Draft: exceeds, meets, or meh

[SirLK26]

Originally Posted by warriorzpath

Actually, he does have something to prove- that he's worth a hefty long-term contract. If he doesn't, then he may just get tagged again.

No, Rak is right. He really has nothing left to prove. He's primarily a pass rusher, and he's rushed the passer at an elite level 4 out of 5 years, the one exception being a year where he was injured for 14 games. The total sack numbers aren't elite, but that's because OLBs in our system haven't rushed as much in recent years as most other teams' do. Orakpo's sack percentage numbers are right among the elite in the league, better than Terrell Suggs, Jared Allen, and Mario Williams, and the same as Clay Matthews.

He'll be 28 next year, so we can expect a few more years of elite pass rushing from him. If the choice was up to me, I'd try for a 5 year deal with little guaranteed money in the final year, something in the range of 60-65 million total. Who knows what the FA market will look like next year, so those numbers could be way off.