More former Ohio State football players sign big deals

The Ohio State football team got more recruiting ammunition after a couple of Buckeyes signed some big deals in free agency.

The Ohio State football team has plenty of rich alumni in the NFL at a lot of different positions. They have the highest-paid defensive end in Joey Bosa, the second-highest paid wide receiver in Michael Thomas, and the highest-paid running back in Ezekiel Elliott.

Now the Buckeyes can add having the highest-paid center to their recruiting pitch as well. Corey Linsley just signed a five-year deal with the Los Angeles Chargers worth $62.5 million to become the highest-paid center in the league. Now he and Bosa are teammates.

Linsley was a fifth-round pick by the Packers back in 2014 by the Green Bay Packers. He was named as a First-Team All-Pro in 2020 and now has parlayed that into his massive deal. Not bad for a fifth-round pick, don’t you think?

He’s not the only Buckeye to recently sign a deal. Carlos Hyde is reuniting with Urban Meyer down in Jacksonville. The former Ohio State running back signed a two-year deal worth $6 million to join the Jaguars. This will by Hyde’s second go-round with Jacksonville as he was there for a year in 2018.

Hyde is one of the league’s underrated backs. He is no longer a true number one guy who can go all three downs, but he can still be effective. Just a couple of years ago he ran for over 1,000 yards and 6 touchdowns while he was in Houston. He still has talent.

These deals come after Pat Elflein got himself a new deal. More Buckeyes are on track to get new deals here soon as well. These big deals give the current Ohio State football team ammo to continue recruiting at an extremely high level.

It’s hard to have a better recruiting pitch than to tout former members of your program being the highest-paid players at their position at the next level.