Cam Jurgens Grading

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2:25He's a great choice in terms of who he's tried to block, including a block coming from level two, with a handoff in one case that wasn't obvious to me, but certainly worked out. As a past blocker, he has a fairly good anchor. I wouldn't say it's elite, but he plays with a nice wide base. It's very solid. There's not a lot of technical flaws in what he does in terms of crossing his feet or anything like that. That would be a very serious high school kind of error to make. But it doesn't do some other things in terms of getting off balance to infrequently. It does not spend a lot of time on the ground, unless it's by design, with some of the Tush push play, of course, he's certainly going to the ground on that, for example. But generally, very sound, fundamental player, and brings up the question, of course, why has this year gone the way it's gone? I think he does something else in past blocking that I like is generally he's an attacking outside of the rim player,

3:26which means he likes to keep the opponent as far away from the quarterback as possible. He's not trying to die slowly, and he doesn't feel the need to do that, because normally he doesn't have to maintain his position relative to the quarterback with his feet by giving ground. So I've talked about Ronnie Stanley doing that a lot. It's just not been what Jurgen's does. And he is on a lot of double teams, of course, being at center and a few less at left guard, but still some. And he often has the advantage of not having to do that. But definitely, I would say he respects what I consider to be the cone that the quarterback needs to feel comfortable throwing into, to step into, to throw. And that's been a good thing for him. And he has had, it's not like the cone has not been repeated at all this year, it has been. But he's done, I think, shows a clear understanding of that in terms of how he attacks his opponent further away from the quarterback. Now, that said, all that said, the pressure rate has been much too high this year,

4:29particularly in the games where he started at left guard and at center in his first game. The problem was really the holding penalties, but in the left guard time, it's really been pressures has been the issue. He has not also been great at preventing elevation from his opponent. So this is something I score negatively. I know PFF does not, but you can take it or leave it as you see fit. But he has allowed some players to get elevated when he's engaged with them or not maintain the proper engagement to prevent that. You know, we had people that showed before talk about punching an opponent in a stomach and doing other things to try and keep them from elevating. There are techniques to be used oftentimes. It's just grip strength and how you're attached to that latched on to that opponent your past blocking. If you have good length, it may be an attack. For example, you may be already working on the armpit of your opponent. And all these things can help prevent elevation. And these are things that that's shown up this year.

5:30These allow a couple of deflected passes. At least one was solo and maybe another two were shared as well. So we'll talk through a little bit of that. Like many linemen, I think he can over commit to the block he's on. And particularly I'm talking about an inside double team, particularly from left guard. He'd been helping the center and somebody else would would fire through that big app. And he would not be prepared to be able to block that guy. So that has been a problem which shown up occasionally in these four games that I looked at. He said four penalties in four games. That's probably the most significant negative individual grading factor. He's given up too much pressure. But three offensive holding penalties already in four games. And he's also got a false start involved that I have some measures on the value of those flags that'll kind of put it in perspective. I hope for folks that traditionally not been buying into the notion that penalties are

6:32very costly. Now he did change to play left guard in week two. So since then he's been very consistently bad. The week one game had pluses and minuses. And in fact his big problem was penalties. But the since then it's been a combination of bad things. And it's fair to say that some of what's gone wrong has really just been a matter of that position change. Ravens, of course, I think we'll be moving him back to center and putting Yawane at guard. And it's certainly the way Yawane has answered questions. So they probably told him that I would certainly expect that to be case that these Emory Jones is out of a job. This week as we understand it, he may not be out of the concussion protocol. It may not be ready to play. If that's true, Emory Jones would have another start at right guard. And I think the Ravens would be looking to figure out what they have with Emory Jones. Last week terrible start came in minus two points on his first five plays. And thinking that is he's lost seven points off the maximum score he could get right

7:32off the bat. And then the rest of the game he wasn't we wasn't terrible. He was a C. He was very physical for the remainder of the game, missing blocks, but didn't have any more negative events after that. And I think the Ravens, if all of a sudden we were to see an A out of both of those players in this game, there might even be a delay of getting Jergens in the lineup. They might do it, but based on how Jergens has played, I don't know why you would make that change if both Yawane and Jones were playing at an extremely high level. But that is something that Ravens will obviously have to figure out after this week. All right, let's get right to it in terms of the grading here, though. And this is I know what everybody really wants to hear. Football is heating up and prize picks has all your picks in one place. New users, get yourself a head start with prize picks best offer yet. If you win your first $5 lineup, you'll get $150 in lineups. That's right. New users get $150 in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. Prize picks is available nationwide.

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9:37Find out your welcome offer after you apply, which could be as high as 175,000 points. Learn more and find out your offer at americanexpress.com slash explore dash platinum terms apply. Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why trade pros trust fiber cement, party backer board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking and help block moisture. Chosen in over 40 million kitchens and bathrooms, party backer board, what the best build on. Shop now at participating home depot, lows and floor into core stores. For more information visit jameshardy.com slashhardybacker. So in week one against Washington, I'm going to go through this and talk through all the elements that I'm collecting here. He had 51 scored snaps. 43 of those were made blocks. He had four that he missed, which means there's four other negative events that are in there that does not include the penalties here. He had three, what does in this case include one of the penalties, but anyway, he had one half pressure, a full pressure and a third of a pressure.

10:42Now you'll notice he'll go out to pf at they've got him for zero pressures on the game. That's okay. That's definational. So given those those two fractional pressures to somebody else or to nobody potentially the full pressure is actually one time when he allowed Omena who to elevate. And I know it was a single one on one block. I know they don't have a charge for that. They consider that to be hurts his problem or not the lineman's problem anyway, but in my mind, this is something that he could have prevented. And by the way, why do I score those guys at negative two in those places? Well, those are potentially very serious problems in terms of turnovers. So they have big risk associated with them when alignment blocks a pass like that. So it is something to be avoided and it can be avoided. There are methods to reduce that chance anyway. So 3.67 points he lost on those three pressures. It essentially is one and five six pressures. I know people are always happy with fractional pressures, but it's a lot better tool set that I'm working with with all zeroes and ones. They've put it that way. And then he's got two offensive holding calls.

11:42Those cost him 10 points in this game. Very significant cost. I did get an analysis done. David Sullivan did this for me. I appreciate you David, by the way. And he looked at all four of the penalties that he had this year in terms of what the total cost was. And he had a holding play at his own 39 yard line in that game. That led to a stall drive. Then he had a holding call at the six yard line. Actually, Hertz bailed him out with a 17 yard touchdown pass on third and 17. So that drive didn't end up getting stalled. It was still quite a costly penalty, of course. Against Tennessee in quarter two. They were down all the way down to the 12 yard line. He had a holding penalty and Hertz bailed him out again with a 22 yard touchdown pass. So, you know, his his friend, Jalen has helped him out a couple of times. And he had a fall start pre-step in the Lus, uh, Los Angeles game. And I don't recall it was on third and nine. I presume that stalled a drive, but I'm not 100% sure about that one.

12:45The total cost of those penalties was approximately 3.84 points. Um, that's of expected points added. Okay. Now, it's not actual points, but it's expected points. It's as good as we can do under the circumstances. There could have been bigger numbers involved in that. If some of the plays themselves had been of positive value and they've been, you know, or they've been of negative value and there'd been a declination in there. They didn't have it. None of these penalties were declined. So they were all accepted. So in a sense, they're the least possible costly version of this. There was one of the plays that got wiped out was a four yard run by Barclay, who had first and goal from the six, which would have improved the situation. But generally speaking, I think 3.84 points is a pretty good example that that is a lot of points, particularly within the context of a center and a left guard and how they contribute to a football game. You know, you got 11 players and you got 22, including both sides of the ball. And, you know, all of those guys are trying to contribute to some score differential that you had you win by.

13:51And to change by, you know, a delta of minus 3.84 from one player on, you know, even spread out over four games like this is a pretty significant amount to overcome. So anyway, the penalties are serious. It was minus 10 points in this game. PFF had him scored in the low 60s, I believe, for the game, which certainly have been a passing score, probably about a C if you believe their grade level. But they do not penalize for holding the way I do or for, for, for flags in general. I have him for 29.33 points out of a possible 51. That's 0.58 per play. Now, a passing grade at center is 0.73. He did get an adjustment because he had some nice plays in terms of highlight blocks and level twos and whatnot. He got an adjustment of .06 in this game. It's a reflection of the combination of quality, the opponent and other factors like the five highlight blocks he had in this game. But that only brings up to .64 and he's still 9 points short of a D minus in that first game.

14:56So that would the first game was an F. Four level twos, two pancakes, five highlight blocks, the five highlight boxes exceptional. I don't believe any Raven has had more than five highlight blocks this year. It's happened. I believe once so far, it might have been Simpson in this last game who had five. So that at least is certainly a positive. And you see him playing. There's just time hanging off some whatnot in this game. It was, it was bad, but it wasn't completely fall off the table bad as I call it. And a lot of people want to know if he had had no holding calls in that first game. He would have had a C instead for that, that game. Don't take that to mean I really believe that he deserved to see in that game because I don't. I think it was, it was pretty clearly an F game with those, with those two holds. All right, we too against Tennessee. He's moved to left guard for this game. Play 72 snaps. And by the way, this is one of the things about the Eagles. They've been getting out snapped dramatically this year.

15:56Three other games are very short snap games. And, and did have 72 against Tennessee where they had some, maintain some long drives. He made 60 of his blocks. He had a eight missed, which is the most he had type for most in any game. He faced a combination of Simmons, Franklin Myers. And it's a lot of the guys who were on the inside this, this last week. And they did work him over pretty well in this game. He gave up a pressure and a half. So one shared and one full. He gave a quarterback hit. And he gave up a sack. That's sack, by the way. I'm trying to remember whether as he tried to hand off Jacob Martin to the left tackle. But there wasn't anybody there. He should have just maintained that block, but that ended up being Martin ran right around and, and got to the quarterback and dropped him. So that was one he was beaten outside for a quarterback hit straight up by Simmons. Happens to a lot of people, but not good. He was bold then shared by Simmons for another separate pressure. That was one he had a shared pressure as well when he was bold by Franklin Myers.

16:57And he shared that with the center on that play. So a tough game for him. Lots of pressure events, certainly against Tennessee. He did also have another holding call in that game. That was the costly one that occurred down at the 12 yard line. Anyway, 43 points on the game out of 72. That's points 60 per play. Adjustment was 0.05 getting him to 0.65 at left guard or at any guard spot. He's a 67 in order pass. See, he was 2 points shorter passing for this game. He did have some nice things. He made four level two blocks, one of two poles, two more highlight blocks. And only four of his eight blocks that were missed were losses at the line of scrimmage. So what that typically means is he's climbing to level two and missing. I might have had him, he had one pole that he missed in this game that wouldn't have counted in that category. So the losses at the line of scrimmage are kind of a more serious version of the miss that I use in determining what the score is. And in determining what the appropriate adjustment is anyway, two points short of a pass and greed in that game. I gave him a pretty beefy adjustment for facing the interior of the Tennessee line.

17:58And he so came up a couple points short. We move on week three versus Chicago 47 plays. That really is a low number 38 blocks. He missed five of those four were losses at the line of scrimmage. So that part certainly was not good. Three pressures in the game, they were all fools. It's a little unusual to have three pressures that are all fools. A lot of pressures, particularly on the interior end up being shared. But that was three fools in his case. One quarterback hit he gave up as well. So that ended up being four total negative events. 29 points scored. 29 out of 47 is points 62. I give him another pretty good adjustment of .05 in this game, which brought him up to .67 and a D minus. And three level two blocks, one pancake, four highlight blocks. So that was the primary reason for that. He did allow. Hertz, rather ran him out of one additional pressure. And I didn't actually check in this game to see if pf f had him for, you know, how many pressures they had him. But they probably would have either had him for four or five.

19:00There's really no doubt in my mind that he's 100% responsible for the quarterback kit. But they did have a, there's another play where pf f probably scored him for a pressure. So they could have had him for five, but Hertz ran for a positive gain and and kind of be able to mount on that one. That does affect his adjustment, of course. Week four against the LA Rams, 59 plays, 44 blocks made eight missed. He allowed half a penetration. That's a shared loss on a run place. He's otherwise been pretty good about his, about his run blocks in these games. He allowed parts of five pressure events, three falls and two halves, totaling a minus eight for that. He had a false start penalty, which is a minus two. He had 33 points in total. 33 over 59 is 0.56. That doesn't seem right. That seems, that seems like the wrong. I'm going to redo that right now here, but I think that's, that's actually not right.

20:00No, it's 50, it's 0.59. Okay, so in it's 0.59. Yes, it's point, it should be 0.59. I had an adjustment of 0.02 in addition to that forum, which would take him to 0.61. That's still an F by six points at that position. So unfortunately, it doesn't, doesn't get him any closer to really passing here. Did not have any level two blocks, no pancakes. They used to have to pull a lot in this game. Six out of seven connections on polls, one highlight block, one again, where Hertz ran him out of yet another pressure in this game. And then he had three of his eight losses, a block speed losses at the line of scrimmage. The zero R is is holding back his adjustment slightly in this game. So anyway, just to go over that again, an F in game one, an F in game two, a D minus in game three and an F in game four. None of these scores were so far off the table. It wasn't within spitting range of a D minus, but then again, still, it's an F for the season so far.

21:03You got to look at that in any reasonable context and say being 0.09.02 and 0.06 short of a D minus in those three games where he didn't get one is not a good thing. He did deliver 12 highlights in the four game four games. Those were a mix of good combination blocks and very clean stunt handoffs primarily. Just again, I'll talk about how much I appreciate watching him do that. He's very good at it and the Eagles were good at it in general. Now moving on to a front office perspective and why the Ravens made this trade. First of all, the Philly reaction, if you go to their boards is is genuine elation that they've got a second round pick for two, two, two, two, two, eight. And they seem to be content to, you know, some of the fans on the board, at least to rebuild the franchise. They think they'll be replacing their quarterback in two thousand twenty eight. And they think how he is accumulating draft capital to move up for the Eagles next quarterback. So it's an interesting point there at, but two and two right now. I mean, I still think the Eagles have probably a pretty good chance to make the playoffs.

22:05But the Eagles fans don't seem to be as excited about this season as, as Ravens fans are even with the problems we've got. All right. Now, if you look back to the Rock on Smith trade in 2022, the Ravens traded a second and a fifth. Neither of those picks was deferred like the second is this time. So there's less value, but they certainly got a lot more in picking up Rock on Smith in terms of an asset that was currently very highly valued. So this does seem like a little bit of an overpay on the surface of player for picks. However, the Ravens are doing something else underneath this. They are trading draft capital for favorable contract terms or another way of saying that is they are selling the Eagles a draft pick in exchange for cap space. All right. That's a very, it's a, it's done fairly frequently in trades and the Eagles eat a lot of preparation of his original signing bonus plus his signing bonus that was paid earlier this year.

23:09The Eagles use a contract structure that effectively has a signing bonus for each of several years. And then a minimum salary and that allows them to void year out all that money. They've done that to the nst degree with a huge number there, their players and it's going to create quite a big problem to swallow when they, when they have to finally have that debt come due. They are in effect, recognizing some of that right now. The Ravens are left with a contract that has a very small salary this year. So it doesn't really impact their cap, which is a good thing because they're now very low on cap with the injuries they've had. They're down to about $3 million. But does has almost no impact on their cap for this year, but they will still be limited in terms of additional players they put on IR will each cost them essentially essentially a vetman salary or a minimum salary, think of it that way.

24:11And that could put them very close to the line. They will probably at some point have to restructure a contractor to this year. They do have some options along that, including trade handers and might be a possibility, which has some fairly significant dollars attached to it. So the Ravens do also pick up future signing bonuses and guarantees on this contract. And since Jurgen Sowery is guaranteed for 2027, they have a minimum commitment to this contract about approximately $17 million, $1 million in 26 and another 16 million in 2027 might be 16 and a half million, but that's the ballpark. The better that maybe another way to look at this is it's 30 games, they're getting out of them for 17 million, by the way, because they've lost the first four games of this year. But if he plays well for the remainder of the contract, it'll be 51 million for almost four full seasons, four full seasons less four games, 64 games in total.

25:12That's per Brian McFarland and he does some great work on this and I'd encourage you to go look at his work and look at anything he has to say about the Jurgen steel, but he sent me this and I really appreciate Brian for that. If he did play 51 million for four years, and for that to happen, he's going to have to turn his career around, frankly, from these first four games of the year, he's going to have to all of a sudden become at least the player he was. And that he could do if he were to then 51 million for four years is going to be extremely cheap for a center for that period. So the Ravens have to believe there is a reasonable chance. And I think this is a combination of both the cost and led for it because I don't think he'd have made the move without discussing it with led for that there's a good chance that he could be rehabilitated. And the last player, of course, they did that with was Marcus Peters. They traded a fourth rounder to the Rams. They also traded young, the linebacker in that trade, the ice cream cone dropper.

26:16And they got to revive a lot of him. They got in fact an all pro one season that first year from him. And certainly that trade up ended up being worth it. I'm going to discuss more of the particulars of this and the reasoning on Friday morning GM. So listen for that tomorrow, but I wanted to put out this grading initially. And obviously is not exactly what Ravens fans want to hear. I know, but I think it's it's accurate, which means probably if you look at pff, they're fairly accurate to in terms of how they look at his play on an aggregate basis. If anything, they have some lower fs and and I probably have some higher fs, but they also have him as having a pretty good game in week one where he had a couple holding flags and you know how I don't really agree with that either. So we've got to I think in aggregate, we've got a fairly clean view. And in terms of the pressures we're seeing, I think it's probably going to end up being very similar as well. So I don't think it's a matter of two different grading systems seeing the player differently in this case. But anyway, Cam Jürgen is now a Raven and we do expect that in week six, if not week five that it will be him playing center with you want a moving to write guard and back to his original spot.

27:32So listening, if you have questions, use film study mailbag at gmail.com. That's always a good idea for Friday morning GM or any of our other shows, but Maureen monitors that mailbox and she'll be looking at putting them towards the appropriate show. Maureen by the way, worked with me this entire time took us about four, four and a half hours to go through the grading on this and and really can't say I can't tell you how much I appreciate what she does for the show. So that's not possible to do it without her. Thanks for listening folks. We'll talk to you next time on film study. Mr. Monopoly here. Miss me. Monopoly is back at McDonald's with millions of prizes. A 2027 cheap chair. A carnival cruise vacation gift cards from Tordash and best five. And play in the McDonald's app. Get your bag. No purchase necessary 50 US and DC age 18 plus C play at McD.com for rules and play at McD.com slash AMOE for info and playing without purchase by mail by November 2nd.

28:33Chants car game ends November 8th. Game ends November 22nd, 2026. See rules for prize details. Monopoly is a registered trademark of Hasbro. Sarah Hernandez fights for working families. As a teacher, Sarah Hernandez helped students go to college and when I attacked her community, Sarah Hernandez provided free legal help to immigrant families. Sarah Hernandez will fight for more housing, solutions to homelessness and a more affordable California. Vote Sarah Hernandez for Senate. Add paid for by Groke, California. Add committees top funders Christian Larson and Timothy Draper. Not authorized by a candidate or committee controlled by a candidate.