Jermaine Kearse says he’s done in Seattle

Jermaine Kearse says his time in Seattle is over. That leaves us with more questions than answers.

All the talk about what it would cost to bring back Jermaine Kearse seems to have been pointless. ESPN’s Adam Schefter is reporting today that Kearse plans on playing elsewhere next season.

This brings up 4 fairly obvious questions:

1. When did he first iterate this? All previous reports were that he wanted to come back, but wasn’t willing to give team a discount.
2. Is this a negotiation tactic to get Seattle to up their offer?
3. Did Seattle already make an offer, and was it so much less than he wanted that Kearse no longer has no plans on returning now?
4. Is there any team out there that’ll give him what he wants?

That final question is the one that’ll be most widely debated in the coming days. There are teams with loads of salary cap space they must use, and plenty of teams that need help at WR.

The problem with connecting those dots is that Kearse is a flawed WR that does many things poorly, but also does a couple of things extremely well. Kearse succeeds when used in a very specific way. His isn’t a guy that you can just plug in to any offense and have it work well.

Atlanta comes to mind in this regard. They need someone to complement Julio Jones now that Roddy White was been released. Kearse isn’t a guy that fits that description. The things that Kearse does well, are also things that Julio does well.

What the Falcons need is a more versatile receiver. Golden Tate would have been a tremendous fit there a year ago. Kearse might work out there, but only if they draft or sign another player as well.

Instead, look for Jacksonville to be the major player negotiations. The Jags have a more diverse receiving group, which will allow them to use Kearse in a way that’ll allow him to excel. They also have the second-most cap space in the league.

Next: Is a new deal for Michael Bennett coming soon?

For now though, I think we can all agree that Kearse greatly exceeded expectations in Seattle. He was an undrafted free agent that worked his tail off and slowly climbed up the depth chart.

Wherever Kearse lands, we wish him luck with his new team.