By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor 
Leading up to the start of free agency, Sports Talk Philly and Eagledelphia will be taking a look at the players on the Eagles roster who are scheduled to become free agents this offseason and how the team should look to handle each.
In this edition, we will be covering running back Jay Ajayi.
A fifth-round pick of the Miami Dolphin in the 2015 draft, The Jay Train proved to be a steal. While he only had 277 scrimmage yards in his rookie season, he became the feature back during the 2016 season. During that season, he was selected to the Pro Bowl and had three games where he rushed for over 200 yards.
The Dolphins went the wrong direction in 2017, however. They went from a 10-6 team to a 6-10 team. The losing began to stack up and the locker room tore itself apart with the head coach making negative remarks in the media toward Ajayi and the running back firing back. Howie Roseman got a call that the Dolphins wanted to move him because of the amount of trades he makes and his previous dealings with the Dolphins. The Eagles were more than happy to send the Dolphins a fourth-round pick for a season and a half of Ajayi.
Ajayi promptly put any doubters to rest as a cohesive locker room embraced him and he embraced back. With no reports of any issues regarding Ajayi since the trade and his key contributions to the Eagles winning their first Super Bowl Championship, the trade proved to be worth it. Ajayi has not had any negative reports even in this season, where the team struggled to win at times and Ajayi was more than frustrated with the injuries he suffered keeping him out.
Ajayi is not a power runner, per se, but his running style is a bit of a blend between power running and cutting. He is able to read the field, wait for blocks and, occasionally, break through tacklers. While Ajayi is an excellent runner, he is not without faults. The three major knocks against him are his injury history, his lack of receiving ability and his fumbles. Ajayi has yet to play 16 games in a season, although he could have in 2017 as both games he missed were as a healthy scratch. While he has had only one injury put him on IR, he has had a few smaller injuries that have limited him similar to the back injury he suffered early this season prior to his ACL team. Ajayi’s lack of receiving ability is evident by his average of one and a half catches for an average of 10 yards each game. While that is not always an issue, the Eagles like to have their backs available to make receptions, so that aspect doesn’t totally mesh well with the Eagles offensive system. Finally, Ajayi has fumbled nine times in only 46 games (including the playoffs). That’s near once every five games, which isn’t good. In his time with the Eagles, he has fumbled four times in 14 games, or once every three and a half games. That is a major concern.
In 2019, the Eagles will still have four running backs under contract. Wendell Smallwood, Corey Clement, Josh Adams, and Boston Scott round out the group currently on the 53-man roster. Donnel Pumphrey is a bit of a wild card who will be with the team during the 2019 training camp, but is unlikely to make the team.
Toward the end of the season, Smallwood proved that he could be a viable contributor in a backfield. The Eagles saw their top three running backs go down early this season and, as a result, the run game disappeared and took the offense with it. Clement will be coming off an injury riddled season, however, and Adams suffered several minor injuries during the season and a major one prior to training camp. While Adams showed potential, he returned to being a non-factor down the stretch.
The Eagles will carry at least three backs to cope with potential injuries. If the Eagles don’t think Pumphrey, Adams or Scott is able to contribute, Ajayi may be the best fit for the team in free agency.
Spotrac.com projects that Ajayi will sign a two-year, $7.275 million deal. That is certainly not a bad deal for the production. The reasoning behind that number being rather low is the injury risk that Ajayi carries, his tendency to fumble far more frequently than similar backs and the fact that he doesn’t get into the endzone as much as many other backs do.
That said, Ajayi is likely looking for a big pay day, but knows he won’t be getting it after contributing to only about three full games this season. Ajayi also enjoys the Eagles organization. He spent two and a half seasons in Miami and learned how awful life can be when you are stuck working in an organization without a good culture or a locker room that has turned on each other.
Those two things could lead Ajayi to sign a prove-it deal with the team, allowing the Birds to keep him around for an additional season while they allow Adams to develop and look for that fourth back. It is hard to argue with the merits of such a prove-it deal after the acquisitions of Alshon Jeffery and Tim Jernigan lead to extensions and long-term fits for the team. While that may not be the ultimate outcome with an Ajayi deal, it could get him the money he wants while buying the Eagles more time.
Should Ajayi sign that two-year deal with an average annual value of $3.6 million elsewhere, the Eagles would be in line for a sixth or seventh-round pick (based on this past offseason). With the other free-agents likely to be departing to larger deals, this pick would almost certainlyend up being too low to count. It would likely be the fifth or sixth pick if all the free agents walked and the league will only grant the top four to a team as there is a four-pick max for each team in regards to compensatory picks.
Ajayi is an interesting case. The Eagles have so many young running backs and have found so much value in undrafted free agents over the past two offseasons that it really would not make sense to sign any running back to a big-money, long-term deal. Ajayi’s injury history will keep his contract years and value at a minimum, however. The Eagles would not get a big return (if any) should Ajayi walk and, with Ajayi in a situation that makes sense for a prove-it deal, the Birds should not rule Ajayi out of the future right away. That said, the Eagles should not enter into a bidding war for his services and could potentially find other good fits such as Tevin Coleman or Mark Ingram.
Decision: Re-Sign to Prove-It Deal
