He was a decent rotation guy in a 3-4...but that's it. He's never been a guy that the Cardinals counted on to make plays.
Agree, let someone else foolishly pay him a lot.
That's the one area where I think he showed vast improvement in 2018. His first couple years, I went out of my way to watch him alot. I commented that it was frustrating to watch him play because he got good push, but he looked like he never attempted to shed a block or make a play on the ball carrier. It was like he was executing a blocking sled drill. Drive his man back until the whistle blowed, then stop and do it again the next play. He was good at that. But he never showed any instinct for making plays or shedding blockers.
In contrast, I watched rookie Kneediche his very first play in preseason, ripping and shredding with his hands to shed his blocker, with Gunter next to him doing the human blocking sled drill thing. If I had a gif of it, I would have posted it because the difference was stark. That prompted me to joke that since Gunter had no football instincts, they might as well just bulk him up to 350 and make him the immovable force at NT.
Fast forward to 2018 and he's doing what I thought he never had the instincts to do - shedding blockers and making plays to the ball. Not at a pro bowl level or anything, but pretty decent. I don't know how that suddenly happens when his coaches had to be drilling that stuff for 3 years. Maybe the light finally came on in his head? Better coaching? 4-3? All of the above?
Somebody will overpay him though - maybe 7 or 8 mil? I can't see the Cardinals doing that, but if they do, I think it's because of his durability and his versatility to play NT in a crunch.