Free agency can propel an NFL team to a new level. Ask Cincinnati, which ran to the Super Bowl on the back of a defense mostly built by free agency.
Players such as Trey Hendrickson, Vonn Bell, Larry Ogunjobi and Chidobe Awuzie all played key roles as the Bengals fought their way through the AFC. The Rams were able to stall them in the Super Bowl through contributions from guys like A'Shawn Robinson, Odell Beckham Jr. and Leonard Floyd -- all of whom joined the champs from the open market.
Of course, free agency doesn't always work out that swimmingly. The most expensive of the Bengals' free-agent additions was Trae Waynes, who barely played a role during the playoff stretch. The Patriots got back on track with their free-agent spending spree last spring, but several of those players faded down the stretch and were nowhere to be found in the blowout loss to the Bills in the postseason, leaving the Pats looking for more help in 2022. Big signings like Kenny Golladay, Bud Dupree and William Jackson III failed to live up to expectations in their first seasons with their new teams.
Let's run through the first couple of days of 2022 free agency and try to identify which organizations, players and positions have been winners or losers during the legal negotiating period. The specifics of some deals are still coming in, and there's plenty of work to be done in the days to come, but we can start breaking down who should feel good about the moves they've made so far. Let's start with the league's biggest spenders.
Winner: Trevor Lawrence
Considering the fact that you need to surround a young quarterback with as much support as possible, Lawrence is in a much better place now than he was in December. New Jacksonville coach Doug Pederson should be a major upgrade on the disastrous Urban Meyer regime, and the Jags followed that hire with a major shopping spree. Lawrence could have as many as five new starters on offense next offseason, one of which is returning 2021 first-round running back Travis Etienne Jr., who missed his entire rookie season with a Lisfranc injury.
The one player headed to Jacksonville nobody seems to have too many complaints about is guard Brandon Scherff, who arrives as arguably the best offensive lineman available on the market. The five-time Pro Bowler hasn't completed a full season since 2016, but Scherff is excellent as both a run-blocker and an interior pass-blocker, and he should create a formidable duo alongside center Brandon Linder. Scherff's three-year, $52.5 million deal will make him the highest-paid interior lineman in football in terms of average annual salary, but that was hardly a surprise given the lack of offensive linemen on the market.
On the other hand, the receiver additions the Jags made raised some eyebrows. Less than a year after the Jags traded 2020 No. 9 draft pick CJ Henderson for tight end Dan Arnold, Jacksonville pushed Arnold out of the starting lineup by agreeing with former Giants tight end Evan Engram to a one-year, $9 million deal. General manager Trent Baalke also added wideout Zay Jones from the Raiders.
The most notable add of all, though, was former Cardinals wide receiver Christian Kirk on a four-year, $72 million deal. While there were rumblings Kirk might get more than anyone expected heading into free agency, this blew away just about any projection I saw for the 2018 second-rounder, either publicly or privately from NFL teams. The deal is more realistically a two-year, $39 million pact, but the Jaguars are paying Kirk just $5 million less over that time than the Packers would need to spend to franchise Davante Adams over the next two seasons.
Kirk's breakout in 2021 was a product of being returned to the slot after Larry Fitzgerald's retirement. Kirk had been a different player when operating out of the slot before 2021, and given the opportunity to play 76% of his snaps in the slot last year, Kirk's volume and efficiency spiked. He went from averaging 1.4 yards per route run in 2020 to 1.9 yards per route this past season. The latter mark ranked 24th in the NFL for 2021, just ahead of guys like Keenan Allen and Jaylen Waddle.
Having a player like Kirk is better than not having him, but the Jaguars are paying Kirk to be better than he was in 2021, which was his best season by a considerable margin. That's often a recipe teams regret in free agency. Helping Lawrence is understandably Jacksonville's goal, and its second-year quarterback is in a better situation now than he was a year ago. From that perspective, the Jags should probably feel good about the moves they've made so far.
Losers: Jacksonville Jaguars
But on the other hand ... the Jaguars gave Kirk $19.5 million per year! Engram has been frustrating for his entire career with the Giants. Jones is a replacement-level wideout who amassed targets out of sheer necessity for the Raiders at the end of 2021. Scherff has missed 21 games over the past four seasons.
I'd do the Scherff deal, but the receiver contracts look iffy even if those players live up to expectations. And they could be a disaster if Engram, Jones and Kirk play the way they have for most of their rookie deals.
This reminds me a lot of what the Patriots did last season, when they stockpiled pass-catchers. The best deal they made ended up being for Kendrick Bourne, whose contract was the cheapest of the bunch. Tight end Hunter Henry was effective in the red zone, but the team's other tight end addition, Jonnu Smith, was anonymous in the passing game. Wideout Nelson Agholor was little more than a clear-out threat when healthy. The Pats added four receivers, and they still need a No. 1. Their best weapon was probably already on the roster in slot receiver Jakobi Meyers.
Heading into 2021, the most exciting weapon on the Jacksonville roster was its own slot receiver and gadget player, second-year wideout Laviska Shenault Jr. Now it looks like Shenault is an afterthought. The University of Colorado product struggled for efficiency in 2021 and was used mostly on screens. The Kirk signing likely takes away his path to slot targets, and the widespread investment suggests that the new Jags leadership doesn't see the 23-year-old Shenault as an impact player.
Honestly, the defensive signings that the Jags made might be worse. In signing Folorunso Fatukasi to a three-year deal, Jacksonville added a run-stopping tackle from the league's 26th-ranked run defense by defense-adjusted value over average (DVOA). It followed up its mission to thieve the league's worst defenses by signing Falcons linebacker Foyesade Oluokun to a three-year, $45 million pact. Oluokun was an underrated player, but he now has the second-largest three-year contract value of any off-ball linebacker in football, behind Indianapolis' Darius Leonard. Jacksonville basically swapped Oluokun in for Myles Jack, who was cut shortly after the signing.
In the big picture, consider where the Jaguars invested their biggest deals in this run: slot receiver, off-ball linebacker, run-stopping defensive tackle, interior lineman. In terms of the positional spectrum, these are the least expensive positions in football, because teams often find that they have the best possible chance of filling these roles with late-round picks or short-term, low-cost free agents. The Jags are treating them like priorities, and it's not because they have the more valuable positions plugged in and figured out.
Pederson & Co. are better today than they were a week ago, but I don't think they're much closer to making the sort of significant upgrades needed to get in contention.
Winners: Cleveland Browns
The Jaguars spent so lavishly on Kirk and Jones because there really weren't many wideout options on the market. Cedrick Wilson, who was the fourth receiver on the Cowboys a year ago, took home a three-year deal worth just over $22 million from Miami. Allen Robinson II is the best wideout left on the market, but he is coming off a disappointing, disinterested season in Chicago. Odell Beckham Jr. is dealing with a torn ACL. There are other slot options available, which should temper any defenses of the Kirk deal, but this isn't a great class of veteran receivers.
With that in mind, I think the Browns have to feel good about trading a fifth-round pick and swapping sixth-rounders to get Amari Cooper on a salary dump from the Cowboys. It's never fun to trade a pick for a player who was going to be released, but the Browns were able to "win" what might have been a free-agent battle for Cooper before it began. Cooper has three years and $60 million left on his deal, and while that's not outsize value for a player who has often played through injuries, I'd much rather have Cooper at $20 million per season than Kirk at a $19.5 million average. The Browns also can go year-to-year with Cooper, who has no guaranteed money after 2021.
Cooper will be a replacement in terms of wideout spending for Jarvis Landry, who was cut shortly after the trade. But their roles will be different. Landry operated out of the slot and worked after the catch, but Cooper gives the Browns a physical receiver who can win on contested catches and work all levels of the field from the outside. Donovan Peoples-Jones and Anthony Schwartz will likely be competing for the third spot as downfield weapons, while the Browns could find a No. 2 receiver later in free agency or in the draft.
Winners: Pittsburgh Steelers
I'll throw another AFC North team into the mix here. The Steelers don't often shop in free agency, but with a black hole at quarterback and one of the league's worst offensive lines, Pittsburgh really had no choice but to take a swing or two on the open market. I'm not sure they've found superstars, but they haven't paid over the odds to add players.
The most significant addition the Steelers made was quarterback Mitchell Trubisky, whose two-year deal has a base value of $14.25 million. All the chatter about how Trubisky was being seen as a starting quarterback with significant upside after his year on the bench in Buffalo turned out to be agent bluster; in the end, Trubisky got what amounts to high-end backup money to compete for a starting job. That's a fair price, which is often hard for a desperate team to get when there aren't many QB options in free agency. And Trubisky's deal shouldn't stop the Steelers from drafting a signal-caller, but this locks in an upgrade on Mason Rudolph.
Pittsburgh then went for another former Bears player by inking guard James Daniels to a three-year, $26.5 million deal. Daniels is one of the youngest unrestricted free agents on the market at 24 years old, and the 2018 second-round pick is coming off his best season as a pro after moving to right guard.
I'm assuming Daniels stays at that spot in Pittsburgh, where he'll link up with right tackle Chukwuma Okorafor, who signed a three-year, $29.25 million deal to stay with the team. I'm not as enthralled with the deal for Okorafor, who ranked outside the top 50 in both pass block win rate and run block win rate last season. With center Mason Cole joining from the Vikings, the Steelers could have a pair of new starters up front in 2022.
Losers: Dallas Cowboys
We go from one legendary franchise to another. The Cowboys were probably hoping to create cap space by trading away players from their core for meaningful picks, but that hasn't really worked out. Cooper was dealt for a fifth-round pick. Nobody has bit on right tackle La'el Collins, who might be cut before the new league year begins. There also wasn't a market for DeMarcus Lawrence, who ended up restructuring into a three-year, $30 million deal.
Dallas also seemingly bungled its most notable free-agent transaction. Shortly after announcing that they were going to re-sign edge rusher Randy Gregory, the Cowboys apparently lost Gregory to the Broncos, who inked the oft-suspended veteran to a five-year, $70 million pact. Suggestions swirling after the fiasco suggested that the Cowboys might have attempted to insert some salary-forfeiture language into Gregory's contract at the last possible moment, which gave the Broncos an opportunity to swoop in and nab the 29-year-old.
With the Broncos seemingly closing off their path to re-signing Von Miller, the Cowboys now find themselves desperately needing to add someone like Miller to their roster. Dallas also needs to address linebacker and safety in the days to come.
Losers: Miami Dolphins
Entering an offseason during which they must find offensive line solutions, the Dolphins have spent most of the first two days of free agency attacking other positions. The only offensive lineman they've acquired has been Connor Williams, who was benched by the Cowboys during the 2021 season. They missed out on Scherff, and they haven't been able to reel in a right tackle to protect Tua Tagovailoa's blind side.
Miami still has time, of course, but I don't love many of their other moves. Cedrick Wilson is coming off of a flashy season with 45 catches for 602 yards and six TDs in Dallas, but he was rarely the primary target and fumbled three times on 47 touches. He won't score a touchdown once every 7.5 catches in Miami.
The decision to sign running back Chase Edmonds to a two-year, $12.6 million deal despite his struggles to be more than a complementary ball carrier doesn't add up. There are just too many ways to find effective situational backs on rookie deals or for the minimum, like the Dolphins did when they signed Duke Johnson off the waiver wire in December. By spending money on players who might not be much more than replacement-level options, the Dolphins are costing themselves cash to spend on far more pressing weaknesses.
Winners: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Bucs might have had a better free-agent window than everyone else. Of course, part of that was getting legendary quarterback Tom Brady back from his brief offseason retirement. Brady was playing at a high level throughout the 2021 season, and while quarterbacks can fall off a cliff unexpectedly at the end of their careers, there's little reason to think he is about to drop off precipitously.
The chances of a Brady decline would have increased if the Bucs weren't able to surround him with talent, but despite a long list of free agents, Tampa Bay seems set to return one of the league's most devastating offenses. Wide receiver Chris Godwin is back on the franchise tag. Brady's U-turn should trigger the Gronk Signal and get tight end Rob Gronkowski to rejoin the Bucs for another go-round. It also likely helped the Buccaneers re-sign star center Ryan Jensen to a three-year, $39 million deal, which took one of the most coveted players in free agency off the market.
The Bucs supplemented the offense with a pair of moves Tuesday. Signing wide receiver Russell Gage away from the rival Falcons on a three-year, $30 million deal should amount to bullying. Gage was Atlanta's only wideout of note after Calvin Ridley was suspended for the 2022 season; Atlanta's top wide receiver is now Olamide Zaccheaus, who would probably be seventh on Tampa Bay's depth chart. Gage will slot into the Antonio Brown role as the Bucs' third wideout and give Godwin extra time to recover from a torn ACL.
After losing Ali Marpet to retirement and Alex Cappa to the Bengals, the Bucs seemed to have a hole at guard, but they added one of the league's most underrated interior linemen by trading a fifth-round pick to the Patriots for Shaq Mason. I was certainly surprised to see the Patriots trade the 28-year-old Mason for a late-round pick. Bill Belichick has a well-deserved reputation for moving on from players at the right time, but Mason has been a very good guard while missing one or two games per year. He is due just under $16 million over the next two seasons, which the Bucs will happily pay given what was left on the market.
Tampa Bay can address its other guard spot in the draft or promote Aaron Stinnie, who played well filling in for Cappa in the Super Bowl win over the Chiefs two seasons ago.
The Buccaneers will still need to address their defensive line, but they were able to unexpectedly bring back a key member of their secondary. Which leads us to our next topic ...
Losers: Top cornerbacks
The cornerback market just hasn't developed in this window. The two key names were playmakers in the prime of their respective careers: 25-year-old Bucs corner Carlton Davis and 26-year-old Patriots CB J.C. Jackson. With teams having a rare opportunity to get true No. 1 cornerbacks with years to go before turning 30, it seemed like we could see record deals for two of the league's best young defenders.
Instead, while both players got significant money, neither broke the bank. Davis re-signed in Tampa Bay on a three-year, $45 million deal, which was surprisingly affordable given what sort of players have gotten that sort of contract in years past. After adjusting for the rise in the salary cap, Davis' deal is in line with free agents such as Trae Waynes, James Bradberry, Shaquill Griffin and William Jackson III. Davis has missed time in each of his first four seasons with injuries, but he has been a better player heading into free agency than any of those other corners.
Maybe Davis chose to stay home at Tampa Bay for less money. You can't make the same case for Jackson, who hasn't missed a game in three years and left for Los Angeles. The Chargers signed Jackson to a five-year, $82.5 million deal that almost identically matches the deal Byron Jones signed with the Dolphins two years ago. Jones was a year older when he inked his contract, though, and he did that in a year when the cap was $198.2 million. Now, with the cap at $202.8 million, it's a bit of a surprise Jackson didn't do better.
Stephon Gilmore, who might be the third member of that top tier at corner, remains on the open market at the time of writing. We've seen second-tier options sign for meaningful money, including Charvarius Ward's three-year, $42 million deal with the 49ers and D.J. Reed's three-year, $33 million pact with the Jets. I think the deals for Davis and Jackson will probably age better than the ones for Reed and Ward.
Losers: Atlanta Falcons
Let's quickly get back to the Falcons, who have been absolutely bamboozled by the Buccaneers. In the days before free agency, the Falcons cleared out short-term cap space by intending to restructure quarterback Matt Ryan's deal and extending offensive tackle Jake Matthews on a three-year contract. Those moves made a lot of sense in a universe where the other quarterbacks in the NFC South were Kyle Trask, Taysom Hill and Sam Darnold.
Well, that's no longer the case. Brady's back, which makes the Bucs prohibitive favorites to win the division. The Falcons are now trying to compete with the Bucs while holding a lesser quarterback, a much worse cap situation and a far less imposing roster. The Falcons haven't really been able to compete for outgoing free agents like Russell Gage and Foyesade Oluokun, and the only player they've been able to re-sign has been star kicker Younghoe Koo, who returns on a five-year deal.
Plan B, bizarrely, now seems to be a run at Deshaun Watson, with reports that the Falcons intend to meet with Watson in the days to come. For a team already in brutal cap shape and with a roster disfigured by years of questionable decisions, trading the reported three first-round picks it would take to acquire Watson seems like it wouldn't push Atlanta in the right direction. The Falcons also would need to abandon their plan to restructure Ryan and eat $40.6 million in dead money to get Watson on the roster. To clear out the additional cap space required for the Texans quarterback, Atlanta probably must find a trade partner and cut defensive tackle Grady Jarrett, who is their one remaining pass-rusher of any note.
More realistically, the Falcons are meeting with Watson to drive up the price for the division rival Panthers and Saints, who are reportedly aggressively pursuing Watson. The Saints' offseason appears on hold pending the Watson situation; they have yet to re-sign left tackle Terron Armstead, and they let former quarterback Teddy Bridgewater join the Dolphins on a reasonable deal.
Winners: Buffalo Bills
As usual, the Bills seem to have a coherent, thoughtful plan for the free-agent period. They've done a few reasonable deals to retain players, including center Mitch Morse (two years, $19.5 million), cornerback Siran Neal (three years, $9 million) and Isaiah McKenzie (two years, $4.4 million), who should step into the slot receiver role about to be vacated by Cole Beasley.
The Bills don't have a ton of cap space, but I also like the moves they've made outside the organization. Bringing in Rodger Saffold III from the Titans gives Buffalo a solid starting guard and a replacement for Daryl Williams, who was cut one year into his three-year extension. DaQuan Jones' two-year, $14 million deal nets Buffalo the third defensive tackle it needed after losing Harrison Phillips to the Vikings.
Brandon Beane & Co. have generally been content to shop in the middle class of free agency for the majority of the GM's tenure. It has usually worked. Sean McDermott and his coaching staff deserve plenty of credit for getting more out of players in Buffalo than their former organizations, but the Bills continue to make the sort of reasonable moves they employed to climb to the top of the AFC East.
(Note: The Bills had originally agreed to add running back J.D. McKissic on a two-year deal for $7 million -- close to half of what the Dolphins paid for a similar player in Chase Edmonds -- but McKissic flipped on Wednesday, opting to return to the Commanders.)
Winner: Aaron Rodgers
Let's finish with the man whose contract seemed to kick off days of breaking news. After two years of trade rumors and back-to-back MVP seasons, Rodgers isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The structure of his contract makes it clear that the Packers and Rodgers both intend to stay in business together for years to come.
Rodgers' new deal is a three-year, $150 million extension that managed to reduce the MVP's cap hit in 2022 from $46.7 million all the way down to $28.5 million. We covered how that was possible a couple of weeks ago; there, I talked about how the Packers could use a signing bonus and an option bonus to pay Rodgers over two seasons and spread the cap hit well into the future while worrying about the dead money after Rodgers retires.
Well, the Packers took that to another level. On this new deal, Rodgers gets a $40.8 million signing bonus in 2022, a $58.3 million option bonus in 2023 and a $47 million option bonus in 2024. The first two bonuses are guaranteed at the time of signing. Rodgers won't get much more than the minimum base salary in each of those seasons, but when you get paid nearly $49 million per year up front before the season even begins, I don't think you care too much about getting base salaries.
By doing this, the Packers get to spread those signing bonuses over the maximum of five years for accounting purposes, meaning only 20% of each bonus will count on their cap each season. That's how you get the combination of a big up-front payment and a relatively low cap number. The Packers will add voidable years to the end of Rodgers' deal with each new bonus to keep those cap hits as low as possible, although there's only so much you can do when you're making someone the highest-paid player in league history in terms of average salary.
In the process, the Packers have embedded themselves into their future with Rodgers. If Rodgers suddenly dropped off and became an ordinary quarterback as he hits 40, the Packers would be stuck paying him astronomical figures through at least the 2024 season. There's no possibility of a trade, as Green Bay would owe more than $100 million in dead money if it traded or released Rodgers before the 2025 offseason. Even then, the Packers would owe $76.8 million in dead money, which is more than double the NFL record. The cap will rise in the years to come, but eating that much dead money is basically writing off an entire season.
If Rodgers retires, the Packers would have to try to recoup significant portions of his signing and/or option bonuses to get back in a feasible cap situation. It's possible that there's wording to that extent in the deal, but this contract is structured in such a way that both parties expect Rodgers to be the Green Bay quarterback for the next three seasons, if not four. The marriage might have been rocky over the past couple of years, but this contract amounts to a very expensive renewal of vows.
For Rodgers, this is a huge victory. The future Hall of Famer was set to make just under $53 million over the next two seasons. Now, he'll take home $101.5 million over that same time frame, with another $50 million to come the following season. Outside of the massive Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen deals, which are a totally different form of contract, Rodgers has just signed the biggest conventional extension in NFL history.
More importantly, perhaps, Rodgers has canceled the transition plan to Jordan Love. This deal ends any realistic notion that the Packers will eventually install Love as their starting quarterback, given that the 2020 first-rounder will hit free agency before the Packers could even consider moving on from Rodgers' deal. Green Bay could keep Love as Rodgers' backup for 2022, but if it wants to maximize its return, trading Love this offseason to whichever team ends up without a quarterback would make sense. At this point, GM Brian Gutekunst's two-year flirtation with Love amounts to a sunk cost.
In the big picture, the Packers are all-in to an extent beyond what we saw with the Saints and Drew Brees or the Rams with their 2021 additions. Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur and his team are locked in for the next several years with Rodgers as their quarterback and doing everything possible to keep his cap hits low in the process. They'll eat their vegetables and deal with the dead money in 2025. For now, after re-signing linebacker De'Vondre Campbell, their next step will be to convince wide receiver Davante Adams to either play on his franchise tag or sign a new deal.