Babin Gets Hired

By Thomas Rende

Ohh, the midseason axe. It can be seen as a fresh start for a player to be cut by his former team - to give him the chance of reproving himself in a new system, with new coaches, and new teammates - or it can be seen as demoralizing.

For Jason Babin it was an escape. He got out of the Philadelphia Eagles’ circus after getting a call from Andy Reid, informing him that he had been cut. Babin got the unfortunate label of being a pass rusher at all costs. His perceived one-dimensional status gave fans the impression that he looked for the glory of the sack before putting the team first. The statistics don’t seem to back up this line of thinking.

After finishing a season with 18 sacks, fans get a certain expectation of the kind of impact that you can have season to season. They pencil you in for a certain type of production and get frustrated when you don’t live up to their, fair or unfair, projections.

AP Photo/ Alex Brandon

Babin had 18 sacks in his first season with the Eagles. He had the second highest pass rushing productivity (a statistic that uses the total number of hurries, sacks, and hits that a player has with different weights on each metric) for any 4-3 defensive end in the NFL.

That number has dropped off slightly this year, but not enough to consider the player washed up. He is still in the top 10 of pass rushing productivity, even with only 5.5 sacks on the season. The pass rushing numbers aren’t the only surprising part of his game. He is rated a solid twenty-third in the league for rush defense at the 4-3 DE position.

The Eagles’ decision to part ways with Babin can still be seen as a smart move for the organization. Not many believe that Babin was the reason for the Eagles’ problems this season, but it shows an effort on the organization’s part to stress some sort of accountability. It also gives some of the younger players, Vin Curry and Brandon Graham, a chance to prove themselves in an otherwise pointless season. Playing and paying Babin his contract might have been a waste for an organization that has to reassess their future.

Jacksonville makes sense as a landing spot for Babin, purely based on their need for a pass rusher, but they have no chance at making the playoffs, so a mid-season acquisition is slightly perplexing. For the time being, you can expect Babin to enjoy the sunshine of Florida while beefing up the Jaguars’ pass rush. Just don’t expect him to call wishing to go back to Philadelphia.