The Green Bay Packers are moving on from James Jones, according to Bob McGinn.
Jones, who will be free agent in March, hasn’t been offered a new contract by the Packers and in all likelihood won’t be.
“I don’t think Ted Thompson wants him,” Frank Bauer, Jones’ agent, said this weekend.
The Packers faced a similar situation with Greg Jennings last offseason. They let him sign with the shitbag Minnesota Vikings. The difference between Jennings and Jones — other than Jennings being a me-first kind of guy — is that Jennings wanted an asinine amount of money ($14 million a year, in case you forgot).
There’s been no indication that Jones is making any sort of unreasonable demands.
Jones is facing a free agent market crowded with good receivers, as well as a draft that’s loaded at the position. He knows, the Packers know and we know there isn’t going to be that desperate team like the Vikings who will overpay.
There’s a slight chance this trip to free agency could end like it did the last time for Jones. After he didn’t generate the interest he expected on the open market three years ago, Jones re-signed with the Packers at the relatively reasonable rate of $3.3 million per season.
From the Packers’ perspective, paying Jones anything other than some super-low economical rate is almost unfeasible. They have looming contract extensions with both Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb to take care of.
Both guys are entering the last year of their contracts. So is No. 3 receiver Jarrett Boykin.
So, lots of work to do.
Without Jones, the Packers will need one of their young, unproven guys to step up. That is, providing they don’t draft or sign a free agent receiver.
Behind Boykin, the Packers have Myles White, who played 123 snaps in 2013; Chris Harper, an in-season waiver wire pickup; and Kevin Dorsey, a 2013 seventh-round pick who spent all of his rookie season on IR.
Projects, all of them.
They may just have to suffice, though.