What should Washington do about Kam Curl?

April 17, 2023

by Steve Thomas

Kamren Curl (6’1” / 206), came to Washington in 2020 as a seventh round draft pick from the University of Arkansas.  Since that time, he’s beaten all odds to become a plus-level starter in Washington’s defensive backfield, with 44 games, including 37 starts, 270 tackles, including 183 solo and 12 for loss, 9 passes defended, and 1 interception.  This past season, he played and started 12 games, and had 83 tackles, and has slowed turned himself into a minor star in the Redskins’ Washington Football Team’s Commanders’ Washington’s defensive backfield.

In order to get a better sense of how far Curl has come, lets’ take a moment to review his college career and his projections during the 2020 draft process.  Curl was a true junior when he was drafted, having played and started 34 games from 2017 – 2019, and made 175 tackles, including 105 solo and 4 for loss, and 2 interceptions.  At the 2020 NFL Combine, he ran the 40 yard dash in 4.6 seconds, did 24 bench press reps, and jumped 34.5 inches in the vertical leap and 10’5” feet in the standing broad jump.  NFL.com’s principal draft analyst, Lance Zierlein, had Curl as a priority free agent and rated him at 5.52 out of 8, which projected him as an “average backup or special teamer”.  At the time, Zierlein stated that Curl “might be better suited to split-safety where he can cover with his eyes more frequently than with his athleticism and speed.”  Curl’s principal weaknesses in the pre-draft process were identified as limited coverage ability, burst, and lack of instincts.

Obviously, Curl has exceeded every expectation, particularly the “average backup or special teamer” label.  Clearly, it makes sense that Washington would want to keep him on the roster on a long term basis, so the question really revolves around the best way to do that.  For these purposes, we’ll put aside the possibility that Washington is making an active effort not to further burden the payroll as a result of the pending sale of the franchise by Little Danny.  The options are to (1) extend Curl now, which they are allowed to do since he is through the third year of his rookie deal, (2) do nothing this season and then put a franchise tag of some sort on his next offseason, and (3) not extend him now, not use the franchise tag, and hope that the team can re-sign him on the open market.

The smart thing to do is to lock Curl in now, before the 2023 season starts.  I have two representative samples of other teams doing exactly this with safeties from the 2019 class, one year prior to Curl’s draft.  Jalen Thompson was drafted by Arizona in round 5 of the 2019 supplemental draft, and played in 37 games in the 2019, 2020, and 2021 seasons, starting 25, and had 197 tackles, including 140 solo and 3 for loss, and 4 interceptions.  The Cardinals signed him to a 3 year, $36M contract extension, including a $10.17M signing bonus and a total of $20.17M guaranteed, just before the start of the 2022 season, which was the final year of his rookie deal.

The other is Titans safety Amani Hooker, who was a 4th round pick in 2019.  Hooker played in a total of 44 games in the 2019, 2020, and 2021 seasons, with 15 starts (including 12 defensive starts), and made 133 tackles, including 88 solo and 1 for loss, and 5 interceptions.  The Titans re-signed Hooker to a 3 year, $30M contract extension just prior to the 2022 season, which included a $10M signing bonus and a total of $17.15M guaranteed.

Curl has played in and started more games than both Thompson and Hooker, slots between Thompson and Hooker in tackles, and has fewer interceptions than both.  Therefore, it seems reasonable to place Curl roughly in the same league as these two players.  Even accounting for the fact that it is now one year later, Curl’s market value right now is probably in the $10M – $12M average annual value range, with guarantees around $20M.  That’s doable for Washington and would represent a good bargain.

The downside of waiting until next year is the unknown of Curl’s 2023 season.  He’s made continual progress in his three seasons in Washington, so it isn’t that far-fetched to foresee a scenario in which Curl makes a Pro Bowl.  If that happens, all bets are off in terms of his market value.  Neither Thompson nor Hooker have made a Pro Bowl.  If Curl does so in 2023, then his price is going to go way up.  Washington would be wise to lock him in now at a reasonable market-rate contract and be done with it, rather than taking the risk of Curl substantially boosting his value in the coming season.  Washington recently made Jonathan Allen wait for a contract extension by exercising the team’s fifth year option, and Allen rewarded them by being selected to the Pro Bowl in 2021, thereby making his contract more expensive.

The franchise tag route isn’t a good option.  For one thing, the 2022 franchise tag values for safeties range between $10.817M at the low end and nearly $13M at the upper end, depending on the type of tag imposed.  More importantly, (1) franchise tags seem to have a hit or miss result when it comes to getting a long-term deal done (see, e.g., Scherff, Brandon), and (2) Washington recently declined this route for Daron Payne.  For those reasons, this doesn’t strike me as a particularly good, or realistic, option if Washington wants to retain Curl on a long term basis.

One additional factor in this situation is the fact that Curl’s father, Greg Curl, has been making some noise on social media about the fact that his son deserves a contract.  Does he speak for his son?  Does that indicate that Curl will be someone with whom it will be difficult to negotiate?  Both of those answers are unknown, but at a minimum, it isn’t a good sign.

In the end, making offer to Curl now is the smart thing to do.  Then again, Washington isn’t exactly a franchise known for doing . . . anything . . . the smart or easy way.  They should offer Curl a three year extension in the range of $30M.  What will they probably do instead?  Nothing, resulting in greater cost later.  That having been said, the ownership situation calls everything, including Washington’s typically dumb way of doing things, into question.  We’ll see what happens.