Why Eddie Betts will pay his way at Carlton
Critics will come for Eddie Betts and Carlton when the 33-year-old plays a bad game next year, but Jon Ralph says the Blues have landed the ultimate low-risk recruit.
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Eddie Betts should pack the body armour as he embarks upon his second career at Carlton today.
Because the critics are sure to rain down blows the moment he doesn’t fire.
They have ample ammunition, too — he turns 33 in six weeks, he has lost a yard and his pressure is nowhere near what it was.
For an AFL small forward, pressure and tackles inside 50 are the bread and butter and the goals are the fringe benefit.
But here is why Carlton’s acquisition of Betts —for a future fourth-round draft pick — makes a heck of a lot of sense.
It is the ultimate low-risk trade with an upside that could drag the Blues into September for the first time since 2013.
As the Herald Sun revealed last week, it is a one-year contract that sees Carlton paying just over $300,000 — less than the AFL average salary.
Adelaide tops up the deal to the tune of around $100,000, and if he stinks it up they play him in the VFL then he goes onto a new chapter post-career at the end of 2020.
And for all the talk about Carlton’s brilliant array of goalkickers, right now that is a total fallacy.
No Carlton forward has kicked more goals than Betts’ 37 this season in any of the past five seasons.
Harry McKay’s 26 majors this year was only good enough for 40th in the AFL, with Levi Casboult (34 in last year), Matthew Wright (22 in 2017), Andrejs Everitt (31 in 2016) and Jarrad Waite (29 in 2013) winning the club goalkicking while Eddie was in Adelaide.
Say what you want about Betts, but slot him into the front six next year and back him to kick more goals than Jack Silvagni (13 in 2019), Michael Gibbons (16), Ed Curnow (nine), or Matthew Kennedy (10).
He will have games when an elite defender won’t give him an inch and the Monday morning quarterbacks will have a field day tearing him apart.
But if he can kick 30-goals plus and find a way to drag Carlton over the line in two more games he will have paid his way.
Of Betts’ 37 goals this year, twelve came against the Suns in two bags of six.
So did he become a flat track bully, or does everyone beat up on the Suns?
A little from column A and a little from column B.
Jeremy Cameron wouldn’t be the Coleman Medallist if he hadn’t kicked 14 goals against Gold Coast this year in bags of nine and five, the most goals against the Sun by any player.
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Betts kicked the second-most goals against the Suns of any player this year. In 10 matches against top-eight sides he kicked 11 goals and in 11 matches against bottom-10 sides he kicked 26 goals.
Most of his other statistics were identical, but the easy goals dried up against contenders.
He is no longer an elite pressure player, ranks below average in pressure points and pressure acts, average in tackles and above average in forward-50 tackles.
But so as long as Betts does what he has for 15 years — churning out goals by the bucketful — the Blues will forgive the weaknesses and he will keep his critics at bay.