After a wild weekend, the opening day of the NFL's legal tampering period of free agency wasn't far behind. There weren't any shocking trades or truly massive contracts, but there were at least four contract reports that required me to double-check I wasn't being duped by a fake account on social media. Every number seems a little bit bigger than expected in a league in which the salary cap has risen by more than $54 million over the past two years. With so many teams fighting over a handful of top options, some of the fallback contracts and Plan B moves made by organizations that didn't land their preferred player were truly stunning.
We're still waiting for the ink to dry on these deals and for the full reports of these contracts and their structures, but we know enough about most of the general terms to draw some conclusions. There are teams, players and positions that were clear winners or losers on Monday. Let's break them down here.
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Those terms are relative. Any player who got paid guaranteed money is a winner. The vast majority of fans around the NFL are happy right now because their team just added a player (likely at a position of need) for nothing more than money. Replacing nothing with something certainly feels like a victory.
Of course, we know it doesn't play out that way in reality. Players might end up getting less than they expected or land in spots that don't make sense for their skill set or future. Teams incur opportunity costs by paying a premium to land their preferred option at the beginning of free agency, costing them the ability to pay more for a true star or to add another player to their roster with the savings they would have made by being patient. History tells us winning the opening day of free agency is usually a Pyrrhic victory. I'll attempt to differentiate between teams that spent money and teams that spent money wisely below.
Jump to a section:
49ers | Bengals | Colts | Jaguars
Patriots | Darnold | Jarrett | Tunsil
Young players | Left tackles
Loser: The Jaguars
Let's consider an example when more might not necessarily be better considering the prices being paid. The Jags have another new regime in place with coach Liam Coen and general manager James Gladstone, and given that they've been in their respective positions for merely a matter of weeks, it was always going to be tough to self-scout and get a strong handle on what's going on with their roster in advance of free agency. If they had been relatively quiet, I would have understood.
Instead, the Jaguars were extremely active on the first day of free agency, but some of their deals don't really make any sense.