Welcome to the new league year! Joey Bosa is a Bill, Geno Smith is a Raider, and Joe Thuney is a Bear -- what a time we live in. Now that all of the free agency dust has settled -- sorry, now that all of the free agency dust outside of Aaron Rodgers' control has settled -- I'm ranking all 32 teams by their offseason process.
I didn't want to just rank their incoming free agent classes, because that would simply be a ranking of which teams spent the most money. I tried to consider everything: Not just free agent acquisitions and departures, but trades and extensions and restructures. I knocked teams that signed great players but probably overspent or had poor priorities; I rewarded teams that spent little, but did so wisely and attacked the right positions. What could have been was also considered: The Browns don't get points for signing Myles Garrett to the same contract everyone would have, when they're the only team that could have gotten picks by giving that contract to someone else.
Of course, the same is true for other teams -- why didn't the Bengals trade Tee Higgins? Or the Rams trade Matthew Stafford? But those are teams with legitimate shots at contention, whose moves I grade differently than those of spiraling franchises like the Browns.
Think of these as NFL Power Rankings, but only grading the five weeks and ignoring everything that came before. (For Bills fans, hopefully you'll be at the top of the real Power Rankings by February.) As such, they're highly subjective, and splitting hairs within tiers can be challenging. I waffled on the order while writing this, and I waffle still as I read it.
With that vote of supreme confidence cast, here are my offseason rankings:
Jump to a team:
ARI | ATL | BAL | BUF | CAR | CHI | CIN
CLE | DAL | DEN | DET | GB | HOU | IND
JAX | KC | LAC | LAR | LV | MIA | MIN
NE | NO | NYG | NYJ | PHI | PIT | SF
SEA | TB | TEN | WSH
1. Buffalo Bills
Key acquisitions and returning players: WR Khalil Shakir, Edge Joey Bosa, LB Terrel Bernard, LB Greg Rousseau, Edge Michael Hoecht, WR Joshua Palmer
I loved: How the Bills retained their own talent before markets got set. The Shakir extension is only $15 million per year. Rousseau got $20 million per year. Bernard is at $12.5 million per year. Those are three young cornerstones of a perennial contender, and they're staying in Buffalo for remarkably less than their open market number. The Bills were right to retain the players who helped get them to the AFC Championship Game, even if they haven't yet slayed the dragon that is the Chiefs.