The Best (and Worst) Moves of NFL Pre-Free Agency

NFL Offseason - The following list of the 10 Best and Worst Moves of (Pre) Free Agency contains no references to Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers, or the New York Jets. Except for that one. And the ones in the next paragraph.

The Rodgers trade and its many subplots, still unconsummated when this feature went to press, are beyond the scope of mere in-the-moment sports-transaction analysis. The Rodgers saga practically deserves its own multi-volume encyclopedia at this point. Also, we have spent weeks pre-discussing it and will spend months/years/lifetimes dissecting it. (You can dissect it further here, in fact.) So let’s allow this humbler feature full of smaller transactions to breathe on its own, shall we?

This rundown of pre-tampering moves also includes trades and contract restructurings, in addition to free-agent comings and goings. Basically, its scope starts just after the Panthers traded up for the first overall pick in the 2023 draft, and it ends the moment that Pat McAfee podcast began on Wednesday.

Enough with the disclaimers. Let’s get to the countdown, starting with the 10 Best Moves of Free Agency So Far.

Best Moves So Far

10. Kansas City Chiefs Sign Offensive Tackle Jawaan Taylor

Yes, Taylor comes with a beefy four-year, $80-million (reported) contract. Yes, he’s a right tackle who will move to left tackle in Kansas City. But the Chiefs found a way off Orlando Brown’s financial not-so-merry-go-’round. Placating Brown while keeping the rest of the Patrick Mahomes/Travis Kelce/Chris Jones core intact would have been impossible, and Brown’s play didn’t always line up with his highest-paid-being-in-galaxy expectations.

Taylor is durable/dependable/experienced, he’s better than any rookie the Chiefs could have grabbed late in the first round, and Andy Reid’s staff knows what it’s doing when it comes to moving offensive linemen around. 

9. Chicago Bears Sign Guard Nate Davis

The DJ Moore-headlined Panthers trade was brilliant, but many of the Bears’ moves since have been little more than splashy water-treading. The Tremaine Edmunds deal, for example, was just an expensive attempt to undo last year’s Roquan Smith drama. But Davis is an absolute steamroller of a run-blocker who can help the Bears offense find a better identity than "10 guys watching Justin Fields run around."

Davis’ arrival means Teven Jenkins, a failed left tackle prospect, must move from right guard to either left guard or right tackle. If such a move succeeds, the Bears have solidified two line positions for the price of one. If it fails, well, keeping a player like Jenkins at the position where he's least likely to do damage isn't a sound rebuilding strategy. 

8. Cincinnati Bengals Re-Sign Linebacker Germaine Pratt

Letting Jessie Bates (Falcons) and Vonn Bell (Panthers) walk was regrettable but inevitable as the Bengals bust open their piggy banks in search of Joe Burrow money. But at least they retained Pratt—an all-purpose off-ball linebacker who is solid in coverage and has a knack for timely big plays—at a reasonable $7 million per year price in an escalating linebacker market. 

7. New Orleans Saints Renegotiate Wide Receiver Michael Thomas’ Contract

Mickey Loomis has discovered a new salary cap magic trick: he waves his wand and the entire back ends of contracts disappear! Why worry about dead money and prorated bonuses when you can just ask the player to rip up his old contract and start over! It’s a cross between a debt consolidation loan, filing for bankruptcy, and begging your brother-in-law for money, and it only works if a player’s market value has plummeted on your dime, but it still works!

The Saints rewrote Thomas’ $96-million 2019 contract earlier in the offseason so he could be affordably released. When Derek Carr’s arrival piqued Thomas’ interest in not being injured anymore, the Saints ripped up that whole deal and replaced it with a one-year, incentive-heavy deal. Dead money, shmed shmoney.

Thomas may be motivated to overcome his aches and pains and restore some of his 149-catch, Offensive Player of the Year luster from the late-2010s now that he is on a prove-it contract. If that happens, the Saints will win the NFC South and can try to sign Thomas to a long-term deal … assuming Loomis can convince Demario Davis, Cameron Jordan, Taysom Hill, and Wil Lutz’s grandpa to rip up their contracts in future years, too.

6. Houston Texans Trade for Guard Shaq Mason

One of the best ways for a rebuilding team to grab cheap talent is to line up for the estate auction when a former contender begins downsizing. Mason provides stability/durability/consistency at a price the Texans can afford (but the Buccaneers could not), and the pile-driving SOB we saw in New England could reappear now that Mason isn’t blocking for a senior citizen and a bunch of dump-truck running backs. 

The Texans clearly plan to draft Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, so they need interior offensive linemen who can blast open sightlines for a short king. They will probably end up drafting a center and another guard. Mason will be invaluable as the anchor and veteran leader of that young line. 

5. Seattle Seahawks sign Defensive Lineman Dre’Mont Jones

While we're discussing best practices: a great free-agency approach for a team on the wild-card tier that has some money to spend is to target one or two young, high-upside players at need positions, even if it means paying a modest premium for them. Such players could still be on the rise, making them potential additions to a Super Bowl nucleus. 

Jones, officially a defensive end but more of an interior rusher in the Broncos system, just turned 26 years old and recorded 35 pressures in only 13 games last year. He’s a disruptor who makes the pass-rushers around him better, and he’ll have a greater impact when he’s playing for a defense that isn't always playing from behind. 

The Seahawks have extra first- and second-round picks with which to make other long-range roster upgrades. They didn’t need to solve all of their problems in free agency. Solving one big one is just fine.  

4. Miami Dolphins trade for Jalen Ramsey

The Dolphins, like at least one other team on this list, are trying to build a super secondary so they can keep pace with the high-powered offenses at the top of the NFL’s food chain. Scoring Ramsey from the Rams sheriff’s auction was a brilliant move, and this trade would rank first if:

• Ramsey wasn’t such a pill who suffers periodic bouts of disinterest/disgruntlement;
• Xavien Howard, who just signed a new extension last April, wasn’t perma-dissatisfied with his compensation (and also starting to decline); and 
• The Dolphins didn’t have an established track record for mistiming their playoff windows badly.

There’s a slim but real chance that Ramsey gives up two touchdowns against the Bills and goes into a midseason mini-funk at the same time that Howard demands a trade. But let’s not dwell too long when there’s a greater chance that the Dolphins win lots of shootouts with the Bills/Bengals/Chiefs in the regular season and playoffs thanks to fourth-quarter interceptions. 

3. San Francisco 49ers Sign Defensive Tackle Javon Hargrave

The 49ers quietly did not get all that much production from their interior defensive line in 2022. Arik Armstead was hurt for most of the year. So was Javon Kinlaw, who has been a disappointment for three seasons. Lots of journeymen got pressed into regular service, and none were all that spectacular, but it didn’t hurt the 49ers defense all that much because they were awesome in other areas. 

Hargrave and Armstead, lined up inside of Nick Bosa, may be the most terrifying tackle tandem in the NFL, especially on passing downs. Hargrave offsets the free-agent loss of edge rusher Samson Ekubam, and 2022 second-round pick Drake Jackson further offsets that loss. Throw in a dozen third-round picks and the 49ers defense could be even better in 2023 than it was last year. If that's the case, they could play Trey Lance on first downs, Sam Darnold on second downs, and Brock Purdy on third downs and still win a dozen games. 

2. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Re-sign Cornerback Jamel Dean

A salary purge is a delicate thing. It’s easy to toss the baby out with the bathwater. Or, in the Buccaneers’ case, it’s tempting to toss the solid young starting cornerback out with the geezers because his open-market value makes him too expensive to keep. So give Jason Licht credit for making cuts elsewhere so he could retain Dean on a reported four-year, $52-million deal. 

Dean allowed a completion rate of just 46.6% to his receivers, the ninth-best figure in the NFL per Sports Info Solutions. He allowed 5.9 yards per attempt (13th) and 0.7 yards per coverage snap (tied with many for 11th). Sure, facing NFC South quarterbacks six times per year can gingerbread a cornerback's coverage numbers a bit. What’s important is that Dean is young, capable, and plays a key position. He will still be good when the Buccaneers awaken from their cap coma and start trying to win again. 

1. Dallas Cowboys Trade for Cornerback Stephon Gilmore 

Gilmore’s charting metrics for the 2022 Colts were strong if unspectacular: a 54.9% completion rate allowed (32nd among cornerbacks with 50-plus targets), 6.8 yards per target (29th), 0.9 yards per coverage snaps (tied with many for 21st). He appears to have arrived at a second late-career plateau just a notch below his All-Pro peak, and that’s all the need from a corner-for-hire who will line up across from Trevon Diggs for a defense fueled by a Micah Parsons-led pass rush.

Gilmore provides answers for dealing with the Eagles offense and cuts off any potential avenues of victory for just about every other NFC opponent. And he comes for the low price of a fifth-round pick and the sort of cap space a playoff team should spend on a veteran leverage-position starter. 

Cowboys optimism? That cannot last. Let's move on to the Ten Worst Moves of Free Agency (So Far).

Worst Moves So Far

10. Dallas Cowboys Expected to Release Running Back Ezekiel Elliott

The issue here is that this move is overdue and dovetails with the decision to franchise Tony Pollard. The Cowboys will now eat over $11 million in dead Zeke money—which they will probably spread across two years to ease the pain—while spending another $10 million on Pollard, who is coming off an ankle injury. Keeping the Zeke-Pollard committee intact for another year actually makes more on-field sense for a team with Super Bowl aspirations than releasing Zeke, but there are limits to what even Jerry Jones can do cap- and cash-wise.

On the bright side, we all get to mock draft Bijan Robinson to the Cowboys for six weeks! But seriously: the Cowboys are likely to spend real draft capital on a running back come April. That’s fine—there are plenty of running backs in the draft pool who can rotate with Pollard effectively and affordably—but that’s one less asset at the Cowboys’ disposal as they strive to keep up with the Eagles.

9. Los Angeles Chargers Release Guard Matt Feiler

Feiler is coming off a down year, though it’s hard to evaluate a guard who spent much of the season wedged between a backup center and a mid-round rookie left tackle in a dump-'n'-shrug offense. The Chargers re-signed right tackle Trey Pipkens and will move Jamaree Salyer from tackle to guard with Rashawn Slater healthy, which all sounds good on paper, but since when do the Chargers get through any season without some sort of depth-sapping catastrophe?

Feiler, who plays guard and right tackle, would have been a fine candidate for some sort of re-worked extension, but the Chargers have Justin Herbert to pay and are already pushing a lot of dough into future years.

Feiler cracks this bottom 10 in part because Austin Ekeler is also unhappy and seeking a trade. The Chargers should be propelling themselves deeper into the playoffs, not losing veteran pieces who helped the team get to where they are now.

8. Houston Texans Sign Wide Receiver Robert Woods

On the one hand, the Shaq Mason trade illustrates that the Texans are acting more like an all-grow'd-up NFL franchise than they did during the Easterbunny administration. On the other hand, signing Woods to a reported two-year, $15-million deal is a sign that they still think of themselves as a sort of halfway house between a veteran’s steep decline phase and retirement. 

Woods ranked 78th in DYAR last year. He’s more likely to be an impediment to a younger receiver’s playing time than an asset at this point in his career. 

7. Washington Commanders Lose Quarterback Taylor Heinicke

At first, the Falcons signing of Fire High Heinicke looked like a big deal: did they plan to let him compete with Desmond Ridder for a starting job? Once the real details of his modest new contract were revealed, it became clear that he’s either Ridder’s backup/emergency fallback plan or, just as likely, the veteran bridge the Falcons will use if they move on to Anthony Richardson.

Heinicke’s departure, however, leaves the Commanders with only Sam Howell at quarterback. Howell has his charms and his boosters, but he's a Plan C for a team that needs Plans A and B (and won't be rebuilding so long as Ron Rivera is head coach). Meanwhile, Baker Mayfield-level contingency plans are drying up.

Maybe the Commanders will pursue Richardson or (ugh) Will Levis. Maybe they have some unprecedented bad idea up their sleeves. But keeping Heinicke would have been an affordable way to keep multiple options open. Which, come to think of it, is what the Falcons appear to be doing. 

6. Titans Sign Offensive Tackle Andre Dillard

The Titans are generally flailing as a franchise and were desperate for left tackle help, so grabbing a former first-round pick made some sense for them. But Dillard is getting a reported $29 million over four years. Even if those numbers are full of fluff (there’s certainly some fluff), the Titans are paying a premium for name recognition and a 2019 college scouting report. Dillard’s injury history alone suggests that the Titans could be right back to piling up sandbags by October.

What the Titans really need right now is a dignified rebuilding strategy. General Manager Ran Carthon probably knows this, which is why he sent out Derrick Henry trade feelers. But sometimes a team has few options except to duct-tape the roster together and wait for some contracts to expire. Dillard is some very pricey and not-so-sticky duct tape. 

5. New England Patriots Lose Jonnu Smith, Jakobi Meyers

Smith’s departure to the Falcons is no big deal, though his brief tenure in New England illustrates just how far the Patriots have fallen since Tom Brady’s departure. Meyers was the team’s most consistent passing-game weapon of the post-Brady era, however, and the current Patriots receiving/tight end corps is full of players your casual-fan brother-in-law had on his fantasy team in 2019.

Patriots fan logic dictates that DeAndre Hopkins will arrive and solve many of the team’s offensive problems. Does Nuk really want to play for Bill O’Brien again? Does Nuk alone really constitute a passing-game rebuild at this point in his career? These are pertinent questions. Would re-signing Meyers have really mattered? is also a pertinent question. Long story short: the Patriots are now paying for the goofy 2021 spending spree that brought in the likes of Jonnu and Nelson Agholor.

(Note: JuJu Smith-Schuster reportedly agreed to terms with the Patriots moments after this feature was filed. The snarky remark about a 2019 fantasy team still 100% applies.)

4. Denver Broncos Sign Offensive Tackle Mike McGlinchey

Overpaying B-tier players—McGlinchey is fine, but he’s not a great value at a reported $87.5 million over five years—makes some sense for a team in a Super Bowl window that cannot afford to open up a hole or spend time developing a rookie. It makes far less sense for a team in the midst of an all-hands-on-deck salvage operation for an overcompensated veteran quarterback who could scuttle the whole organization if things don’t turn around. 

McGlinchey could turn out to be an enormous sunk cost if the Russell Wilson/Sean Payton experiment goes thermonuclear. Even if McGlinchey plays to expectations and the Broncos turn things around, his contract could stand in the way of future upgrades. The Broncos are reportedly shopping Jerry Jeudy and Courtland Sutton, so it looks as though they are paddling their canoe in two directions at once. 

In short, this is no disaster, but it’s the type of panicky move a fractious organization makes when it’s unwilling to commit to a real long-range plan. 

3. Philadelphia Eagles Release Cornerback Darius Slay

Eagles general manager Howie Roseman is doing a reasonable job of steering into the skid and keeping some of the team’s expensive Super Bowl nucleus from melting away. The Eagles have retained Brandon Graham, James Bradberry, and Jason Kelce (who was expected to retire) so far, as well as smaller pieces such as Boston Scott. Departures such as linebackers T.J. Edwards and Kazir White look more serious on paper than they will on the field, and not much could have been done about Javon Hargrave. But Slay’s departure will sting, especially since Roseman couldn’t find a way to swindle some team out of a mid-round pick in a trade. 

The good news for the Eagles is that they can grab a starting-caliber cornerback to replace Slay with the 10th overall pick in the draft if they chose to, then turn around and fill another hole with the 30th overall pick. The bad news is that there are a lot of holes opening up, and even with prospects such as Nakobe Dean and Jordan Davis in the pipeline, the Eagles are going to struggle to fill them all. 

2. Las Vegas Raiders Sign Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo

Going from Derek Carr to Jimmy Garoppolo is a downgrade. When a team downgrades at quarterback, that means it should be rebuilding. But are the Raiders rebuilding? Heck no! Josh McDaniels is in HIZ GUYZ mode, which is a glowing red flag in any coach’s second season, let alone a Belichick Buddy (they love their "culture shifts") who has shown a lack of long-range vision in the past and is coming off a string of mismanaged losses in his inaugural season.  

The Garoppolo signing might have been justifiable if the Raiders planned to build some 49ers-like YAC attack around him (plus a real defense, but McDaniels will get to that in 2024). But just when it appeared that the Raiders planned to do just that with the addition of Jakobi Meyers…

1. Las Vegas Raiders Trade Darren Waller to the Giants

… they dealt Waller in what looks like a combination cost-/face-saving move.

McDaniels, you see, blabbed about Waller’s impending wedding to WNBA star Kelsey Plum during the coach’s combine press conference. Per Vic Tafur of The Athletic, Waller and Plum were hoping to keep the nuptials quiet and private. Thanks to McDaniels, the local press reported on the event.

You would think that it’s pretty easy to not disclose details about a player’s private life during a 12-minute podium interview with a bunch of reporters asking questions about your team’s quarterback situation, Josh Jacobs, and 100 other topics. You might also think that it’s easy to smooth over relations with one of your team’s stars after making what was probably just a thoughtless mistake. But McDaniels is too much of a faux Belichickian for your interpersonal dynamics! So Waller gets traded, Josh Jacobs gets mad, Plum fires shots on Twitter, and the whole organization looks unprofessional, disgruntled, and a little more ridiculous than usual. 

The Waller trade is a modest success for the Giants, who get a 31-year-old (at the start of the 2023 season) tight end coming off two years of injuries who is unlikely to be part of the team’s long-term rebuild. But it’s a disaster for the Raiders, who demonstrated that they are as directionless now as they were under Jon Gruden, if not more so, and that McDaniels hasn’t changed all that much in the decade since he mismanaged the Broncos.