If you’re making a list of the Patriots’ fine sixth-round picks, needless to say each person is aware of Tom Brady is No. 1. But OL Michael Onwenu has a superb case to be in the top three, and you have to go again over 50 years to find every person else close.
Aside from a weird half-season the place he came off the bench in his 2nd year, Onwenu has been a mainstay in the Patriots’ lineup regardless of his humble origins. Pro Football Focus has yearly graded him among their top performers and it hasn’t mattered a whole lot the place he’s lined up. He break up time between left guard, right guard and proper tackle as a rookie, shuttled between left guard and right tackle his 2d season, spent his entire third yr at right guard and performed particularly proper address with a dash of proper defend in 2023.
That type of flexibility is a lifesaver for groups who can get pinched with accidents without difficulty on the offensive line. Onwenu is a wall of a human at 6-3 and 350 pounds, and that measurement and strength makes him challenging to deal with at each defend and tackle. It helps that the Patriots have been one of the few teams over the previous few years to run more gap plays than zone. Onwenu’s strengths line up extra with hole schemes but he’s greater than equipped in both.
Long-term, Onwenu’s high-quality suit is probable at proper guard, but there’s greater than ample tape of him playing properly at proper address for teams to go off of. From a contractual standpoint, there’s not necessarily a important distinction proper now between an elite defend or a stable proper tackle. Either tack with the aid of his agent would get him in the vary of $16-$18 million a year, perhaps extra if a group is certainly desperate.
Onwenu is effortlessly the great offensive lineman on hand in free agency this year, and his market ought to mirror that.
Onwenu, 26, used to be drafted with the aid of the Patriots in the sixth spherical out of Michigan in 2020. He performed out the final 12 months of a four-year, $3.497 million deal that covered a signing bonus of $202,468.
He is presently set to end up an unrestricted free agent in 2024.
In 2023, Onwenu regarded in 15 video games and made 15 starts offevolved for the Patriots, 4 at shield and 11 at right tackle. Pro Football Focus had him rated as the No. 29 tackle out of 81 qualifying players.
We have him protected in our Top one hundred – 2024 NFL Free Agents list.
Chargers
The biggest holdup for the Chargers will be their cap situation. As of proper now, Los Angeles nevertheless has serious work to do to get beneath the cap but they have heaps of achievable revenue they can still reduce as new HC Jim Harbaugh remakes the team. They could have room to make one large splash in free agency, and if they do I assume Onwenu would be one of their biggest priorities.
Harbaugh and new OC Greg Roman will be going for walks a smashmouth offense built heavily on hole scheme runs. It’s what Harbaugh did in college at Michigan — where Onwenu was once in one of his first recruiting classes — and it’s what Roman has carried out in all of his previous NFL stops such as most lately with the Ravens. Improving the offensive line to be in a position to run that effectively in the NFL will be a huge priority for the Chargers.
Onwenu should slot in at either proper shield or proper tackle and supply the Chargers a main improve over either Jamaree Salyer or Trey Pipkins. If it’s right tackle, that would free the Chargers to go after a receiver or edge rusher with the No. 5 typical pick, both by using staying put or by using buying and selling down. If it’s proper guard, Onwenu should probably pair with a top select at proper tackle to supply the Chargers the type of road-grading engine succesful of powering the kind of offense Harbaugh wants to run.
Raiders
In 2022, Raiders RB Josh Jacobs led the NFL in gap scheme runs by means of a properly clip. Las Vegas still ran more hole performs than region runs in 2023, but the balance swung a good deal closer and new OC Luke Getsy will in all likelihood lean extra on zone schemes given his numbers in Chicago and his historical past with the Packers/Mississippi State.
Regardless, the Raiders have some cap space to play with this offseason and a important need on the offensive line, particularly on the right facet where each starters Greg Van Roten and Jermaine Eluemunor are pending free agents. New Raiders HC Antonio Pierce has said he needs to be a run-first offense to establish the kind of physical identity he needs Las Vegas to be known for. Onwenu would be a massive piece of that.
Bengals
Despite the usage of the franchise tag on WR Tee Higgins, the Bengals nevertheless have extra than $40 million in handy cap space to use this offseason. They have some room to make some huge free agent swings if they want, and in the previous few years the Bengals have been one of the greater active groups in free agency. That’s mainly been authentic alongside the offensive line. In latest years, the Bengals have signed LT Orlando Brown Jr., C Ted Karras, RG Alex Cappa and RT La’el Collins to big deals to come in and start. Collins is the solely one not nevertheless with the team.
Perhaps the Bengals would decide on to allocate draft capital in a deep type for tackles to try and stability matters out extra on the offensive line, as nicely as store money for extensions down the line. But it’s tough to omit how great of a match Onwenu is for Cincinnati. The crew will need a new starting proper handle with Jonah Williams set for free enterprise and the Bengals love their cumbersome maulers up front.
In omit protection, that dimension forces edge rushers to take a wider attitude to get to the quarterback, assisting QB Joe Burrow have extra area to operate. In the run game, the Bengals had been one of simply five teams that ran hole schemes for more than 50 percentage of their strolling plays. Those two elements make Onwenu a plenty cleaner in shape at handle for the Bengals than he’d be for some other teams.
Lions
One of the coolest matters about how Lions OC Ben Johnson runs his offense in Detroit is how diverse schematically the group is in the run game. The Lions can run gap and quarter schemes with equal aplomb. In 2022, they had been more gap-heavy, whilst in 2023 the balance shifted to forty seven percent zone, 43 percent gap — which was once nevertheless the ninth-highest percentage of gap runs in the league.
Both years the Lions were pinnacle five on offense and the strength of the offensive line has been a key issue in that success. Heading into 2024, however, the Lions are slated to lose their pinnacle three guards to free enterprise between Jonah Jackson, Graham Glasgow and Halapoulivaati Vaitai. Jackson in unique may want to get massive cash with some buzz round him heading into free agency.
While Onwenu wouldn’t be any more cost-effective than re-signing Jackson, PFF thinks that would give the Lions a a good deal better player. Onwenu has ranked eighth, third, fourth and twenty ninth at his role in his 4 years in the league. Jackson has been 55th, 24, 27th and 34th, and while Onwenu has executed a lot of that right work at tackle, Jackson is solely a guard.
Detroit has to price range for numerous extensions for modern gamers like QB Jared Goff and WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, however they have more than $40 million in cap house proper now and an extension for Goff should honestly add to that relying on how it’s structured. Add in the homecoming factor with Onwenu returning to Michigan, and the Lions appear like a sneaky contender to signal Onwenu.
