Stephen Paea’s first season in Washington was, in a word, ‘meh.’ As in, not bad, but not really what the Redskins were looking for, either, after signing the disruptive defensive lineman to a four-year, $21 million contract on Day 1 of free agency a year ago. The 28-year-old started just one game, saw his sack total drop from 6.0 with the Bears in 2014 to only 2.5 and his quarterback pressures plummet from 31 to 9, according to ProFootballFocus.com. Paea also finished the season on injured reserve. So, yeah, not great. Will he bounce back in 2016? Tandler and Tarik debate.

El-Bashir: True

This is just a hunch, but I suspect one reason GM Scot McCloughan didn’t draft or sign a big name D-lineman this offseason is because he expects the unit to improve from within—with Paea leading that charge. When I asked Paea about last year’s inconsistency, he was open and honest about things, saying he struggled at first to grasp Joe Barry’s system, which led to overthinking and prevented him from playing fast and instinctually. Now, though, he gets it, telling me, “This year, I have a good feel for the playbook and what the coaches are demanding of us.”

Second, Paea says he’s 100-percent healthy. Last year, by the time the playbook started to make some sense, his body had begun to fail him. He struggled with back spasms for a couple of games early on and then missed the final four regular season contests and the Wild Card loss to the Packers with a toe injury that turned out to be less significant than doctors originally feared.

So, based on Paea’s increased comfort level in scheme and improved health, I’m willing to be optimistic about 2016. Last season was an adjustment period. He was banged up. It happens. This season, I predict he seizes a much bigger role and produces some solid stats. Gimme 4-5 sacks and, just as important, 20-25 pressures—numbers that are much more commensurate with the ones that helped him earn the big contract.

Tandler: False

I’m not completely down on Paea’s chances of contributing this year but I’m not as upbeat about it as Tarik seems to be.

When he went on injured reserve last year, it seemed to be an attempt to hit the reset button. Paea was brought in to be a starter but he was mostly invisible. After playing 67 percent of the snaps with the Bears in 2014 he played as many as 40 percent of the snaps in a game just once. Perhaps this should have been expected since that is what frequently happens when the Redskins sign a free agent.

If you look at his career numbers it appears his 2014 season in Chicago was an outlier. Going into that year he had six career sacks in three seasons. He had six in 2014. Paea had a combined 24 tackles in 2012 and 2013. In 2014, his contract year, he had 24 tackles. I suppose you could say that after getting some experience under his belt he was just coming into his own. But a pending free agent having a career season when there is money on the line? Sound familiar, Redskins fans?

The answer to this question depends a lot on how you define “bounce back”. Will he put up numbers like he did in 2014? I’d be surprised if he ever saw a season like that again. Can Paea, who has the highest salary cap number among the Redskins’ defensive lineman, get to the relatively low bar of the stats that Tarik projects? Perhaps, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

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