The Jacksonville Jaguars unceremoniously dumped the longest-tenured player on their roster
Tuesday
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The Jaguars released veteran tight end Marcedes Lewis after 12 seasons to save $3.5 million in salary-cap space. The move came the same day Jacksonville
parted ways with receiver Allen Hurns to save $7 million.
Both players are now free agents and can sign with any team that wants them.
Hurns’ future had been in doubt since Dede Westbrook and Keelan Cole emerged as big-play receivers late last season. Hurns really became expendable when the
Jaguars signed two receivers last week, bringing back Marqise Lee and adding
Donte Moncrief in free agency.
Lewis thought his spot was safe, even after Jacksonville signed Austin Seferian-Jenkins and Niles Paul last week. The Jaguars picked up an option in
Lewis’ contract last month.
Lewis told The Associated Press he felt ”disrespected” by the timing of the move. It came a week after free agency began.
”I wish they would have done it sooner,” he said. ”I think I deserved a little better than this.”
The 33-year-old Lewis, a first-round draft pick in 2006, played in 170 games with Jacksonville. His 375 receptions and 4,502 yards receiving both rank third
in team history. His 33 receiving touchdowns are second-most in franchise
history, trailing only Jimmy Smith (67).
He said he hopes to continue playing and would prefer to stay closer to his home and daughter in Los Angeles. Lewis has ties to former Jaguars coach and
current Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, and his college
position coach, Jon Embree, is tight ends coach for the San Francisco 49ers.
Also, former Jaguars offensive coordinator Greg Olson now holds the same
position with the Oakland Raiders.
”I’ve still got a few more years left in me
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who does everything the right way on and off the field and with 100 percent
effort. That’s all I did in Jacksonville. I always did what they asked me to do,
which is why the way they let me go is annoying in that sense.”
Hurns would have been behind Lee and Moncrief on the depth chart, and Jacksonville felt his salary was too high for a backup who has missed 11 games
the last two seasons.
Hurns has 189 receptions for 2,669 yards and 21 touchdowns in four years since signing with the Jaguars as an undrafted rookie from Miami. But he caught
just 74 passes for 961 yards and five scores the last two years while dealing
with a sports hernia in 2016 and a high ankle sprain in 2017.
—
When Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold entered the team’s new practice facility a couple of weeks ago, the organizational motto was staring him in the
face.
So was the advice he should make a change in the front office, despite his fondness of general manager Chuck Fletcher.
”It’s the first thing you see when you walk in the door: `Good is not good enough,”’ Leipold said. ”I felt that was a signal for me.”
The Wild split with Fletcher after nine seasons and only two playoff series wins, a decision – ”very agonizing,” Leipold said – that the 25-year veteran of
NHL management would not have his contract renewed was delivered in a Monday
morning meeting.
”I wanted a new set of eyes on this team,” Leipold said.
The Wild have six straight postseason appearances, matching the longest current streak in the Western Conference with the Anaheim Ducks, but they have
not reached the second round since 2015. They were only 15-29 in playoff games
during Fletcher’s
tenure
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for all the success the team has enjoyed in the regular season.
”Right now I just don’t see us with this team getting to the championship series. I just don’t see it,” Leipold said. ”I think we’re a good team. I really
do, and I just talked to our players about this. They’re a good team, but
they’re not good enough right now.”
Since Fletcher stunned the NHL by signing left wing Zach Parise and defenseman Ryan Suter, the market’s most-coveted free agents in 2012, the Wild
have been a runaway success on the business side with sellouts at Xcel Energy
Center as routine as the aroma of mini donuts and the swish of the skates on the
ice. The fans have been frustrated by the postseason plateau, though, and
Leipold bluntly acknowledged he dismissed Fletcher in part to appease the
customers.
”The fans deserve to win one here,” Leipold said. ”This is the state of hockey, and I’m really confident that we’re going to have candidates that are
interested in coming here because of our fans, because of our market, because of
our team. I’m energized by the opportunity to talk to some of these people.”
Leipold
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Fletcher, said the move was unrelated to the Wild’s early exit this year. They
lost in five games in the first round to the Winnipeg Jets, after being ousted
in five games in 2017 by the St. Louis Blues. Last year, Leipold declined to
extend Fletcher’s deal.
”My antenna’s been up,” Leipold said. ”Chuck and I have had numerous conversations all year. I wanted to wait until the end of the year to assess
everything, to understand how I feel about where we’re going. Are we still in
the window to win the Stanley Cup? I believe we are. He believed we are. But my
personal feeling was that I wanted someone new to come in and kind of shake it
up.”
Leipold said he won’t order a significant rebuild, nor does he believe that’s necessary for postseason progress. He added he would not hire a general manager
who recommended a long-haul approach to hoisting the Stanley Cup.
”We were sixth overall two years ago. We were eighth overall this year,” coach Bruce Boudreau said. ”We’ve got an awful lot of good, moving parts there.
We’ll tweak it a little bit, and we’ll be better.”
The Wild haven’t struggled enough to get a game-changer in the draft, with Matt Dumba in 2012 (seventh) and Mikael Granlund in 2010 (ninth) the only top-10
picks that Fletcher and his staff had. The rival Jets, for
example
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selection in 2016 and watched him finish second in the NHL with 44 goals in
2017-18 while the team posted the second-best record in the league.
In one way, the Parise-Suter signings for 13 years and $98 million each have worked against the Wild considering they account for 20 percent of their salary
cap space and are on the books for seven more seasons. But Suter had a
career-high 45 assists, before breaking his right ankle with four games left in
the regular season, and Parise was one of the team’s best forwards down the
stretch with 12 goals in the last 19 games. He scored in all three playoff games
before breaking his sternum.
Trades that didn’t pan out under Fletcher have hurt the Wild more than any free-agent signing or first-round draft pick. Charlie Coyle is all that’s left
from the deal that sent defenseman Brent Burns to San Jose in 2011, and Coyle
didn’t notch a goal or an assist in the series against the Jets. The trade last
summer that sent Jason Pominville and Marco Scandella to Buffalo for Marcus
Foligno and Tyler Ennis didn’t wind up helping.
So Fletcher’s successor will eventually go to work on a roster that produced a goal-less streak of 141:27 to end the series with Winnipeg.
”If you look at the teams moving on, the teams that are winning, they’re scoring and playing at a pretty fast pace,” Parise said. ”We’ve got to get to
that level.”
—
.
