Aaron Banks - Guard Free Agent Signing 2025

[mradtke66]

You are looking at the past. That is what I believe is going to change. And imho, has been kind of screwed up all along. Just because something has been a certain way, does not mean it has been correct. More valuable? Sure. But not by as much as has been thought. A lot depends on the individual player. And like I said, a tackle that can't run block well is a limited player.

While this the past, all contracts have to be in the past to have been signed. But these are current contracts.

If the salaries between the positions is that out of alignment, the league as a whole obviously values these players roughly as they are slotted.

It is possible the league is wrong, but were that true, it would trend towards correction. This has happened at tackle. The current highest paid tackle (by yearly average) is a right tackle, not left. And yet center is still under paid.

We have a handful of guards making 20m. We have several tackles making 20m. We don’t have a single center making 20m.

Center is viewed as less valuable. If it were seen as on-par, it would be paid on par. So why is it seen as less valuable? That’s a more interesting question. My guess is that it is less athletically demanding, leading to replacing them being easier. Hard to find those 300 pound dancing bears than can ballet while sitting on invisible chairs on the edge compared to a guy who is “just” smart, hard working, and has two guys, probably bigger than him, who can help him out.