NFL Free Agency- My Nine Observations
SAFETIES ARE BECOMING A FOCAL POINT OF NFL DEFENSES & THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR IT
This season we saw an unprecedented amount of money being paid out for some of the league’s top safeties. While the position is important to NFL defenses, especially in today’s game with the amount of down field passing, some teams went above and beyond to secure themselves a safety including the Washington Redskins who paid over $80 million for former Giant Landon Collins. Collins is not the only safety to get top money this off-season as the Kansas City Chiefs shelled out over $40 million for Tyrann Mathieu while the Baltimore Ravens landed veteran Earl Thomas who will be making over $15 million per season starting in 2020. Needless to say, teams are not afraid to overpay if it means landing a defensive play maker in free agency.
THE MIAMI DOLPHINS ARE IN REBUILD MODE
Since the end of the 2018 season, it has been apparent that the Miami Dolphins were looking to go in a new direction after the firing of former head coach Adam Gase and the hiring of former Patriot coach Brian Flores. Once free agency started, Miami continued to illustrate this plan by letting some of their top free agents walk into Juwan James and veteran Cameron Wake while trading their starting QB Ryan Tannehill. Recently the Dolphins signed veteran journeyman Ryan Fitzpatrick as their new starting QB essentially telling everyone that they are rebuilding this year and will get their QB of the future in 2020.
THE NEW YORK GIANTS ARE IN REBUILD MODE?
Unlike the Miami Dolphins, the New York Giants look like a team in full rebuild mode except they’re not. Not only did they trade one of their best defensive lineman in Olivier Vernon but they did the one move no one expected them to make- trade star WR Odell Beckham Jr. To make matters worse the team followed up by signing former Eagle WR Golden Tate to a $30 million dollar in hopes of adding some production lost by Beckham’s departure. If the Giant’s really do plan on rebuilding the only thing left to do is draft a QB with their first pick and make this Eli Manning’s last year in New York.
LE’VEON BELL HELD OUT LAST YEAR & GOT LESS THAN EXPECTED
Last year Steelers RB Le’Veon Bell made it clear that 201 would likely be his last in the black and yellow after sitting out the entire season and sending a message to the team that he was out the door after 2018. When free agency began, Bell was one of the more talked about free agents and the thought was the former Pro Bowl RB was going to net a big payday from some team needing a play maker at RB. Instead Bell ended up signing with the New York Jets for over $50 million dollars, which seems like a lot but is in fact less than Pittsburgh offered him before let left for free agency. Bell did get a big payday, but not the one he was hoping for in free agency.
THE CLEVELAND BROWNS ARE ALL-IN THIS SEASON
One could say that the Cleveland Browns are doing the exact opposite of the Miami Dolphins and are making moves to be all-in this season. The team started out by trading for Olivier Vernon to pair with Myles Garrett. Shortly after the Browns made of the trade of the off-season in acquiring WR Odell Beckham Jr. as well as former Chief RB Kareem Hunt along with defender Sheldon Richardson. Let’s just say the Cleveland Browns will be one the more exciting teams to watch in 2019 and should be in contention for the AFC North Division title.
TRADES, TRADES & MORE TRADES
As previously stated above, this off-season has been filled with more trades than we usually and trades that involve star players. Steelers WR Antonio Brown was the first notable trade everyone knew was coming but was made official when he was trade to the Oakland Raiders. The Giants followed up by trading Vernon and Beckham and the San Francisco 49ers decided to upgrade their pass rush by trading for Dee Ford after a fantastic season in Kansas City. While these trades made this year’s free agency one to remember, there are still some trades that could be made involving good talent in Chicago Bears RB Jordan Howard among others.
THE JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ARE BETTING THEIR FRANCHISE ON NICK FOLES
From the second the Philadelphia Eagles lost to the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs, the first topic of conversion became what the Eagles would do with QB Nick Foles. Now everyone knew that the Eagles would be moving on from the former Superbowl winning QB but the question would be whether or not the team would franchise Foles and trade him for draft compensation. Instead, the Eagles let Foles hit the market as a free agent and immediately became the top free agent QB and the first team that showed interest was the Jacksonville Jaguars. Eventually the Jaguars handed Foles a hefty contract in excess of over $20 million per season. What this illustrates is that the Jaguars are committing to Foles for more than one year and they believe he is worth being paid like an elite QB. This also means that Foles has to show that he is capable of leading a new team to the playoffs rather than be around a team built to win like he had in Philadelphia.
TEAMS NARROWING DOWN THEIR DRAFT NEEDS
Several teams went into this free agency period with several positional needs and have since then decided that they will address those needs in free agency rather than draft prospects to fill each need. The Raiders upgraded their offense with WRs Antonio Brown & Tyrell Williams along with OL Trent Brown. The Packers addressed their need for pass rush by signing both Za’Darius Smith & Preston Smith and the Jets got help for QB Sam Darnold by signing RB Le’Veon Bell, WR Jamison Crowder and trading for OL Kelichi Osemele. Not only did these teams spend alot of money in free agency for these upgrades but they now are in position to draft the best available players rather than for need and consider this during the draft- each of these teams all have multiple high round picks including the Raiders & Packers who each have multiple 1st round picks.
ALOT OF TOP FREE AGENTS STILL AVAILABLE
Even though most of the top rated free agents were signed within the first few minutes of free agency there is still a good amount of high quality free agents still waiting to be signed. Some of the top free agents remaining include:
Justin Houston | OLB
Ndamukong Suh | DL
Ezekiel Ansah | DE
Jared Cook | TE
Eric Berry | S
Jamie Collins | LB
Tim Jernigan | DL
Michael Crabtree | WR
This list goes on and on and even though some of these names aren’t star players, they are still starting caliber players including a few veterans who may have lost a step but are still considered high caliber starters. Over the next few days and weeks most of these sames should come off the list as the next wave of free agent gets underway.