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In 72 hours, your team may look a little different.
But not as much as was the case in the past few years. For one specific reason.
“It’s a really bad group overall,” one AFC exec says of this year’s free-agent class.
NFL free agency is here, and I know that’s not how to get everyone fired up about the noon ET kickoff of the negotiating period Monday or the 4 p.m. ET start of the league year Wednesday. But it’s the reality facing every NFL team—getting better this offseason will require creativity and skill, and recon work way more than it will to simply open the owner’s checkbook and make a few guys filthy rich.
There’s a good reason for that. The cap dropped in 2021 as a result of COVID-19. Since, it’s gone from $182.5 million to $208.2 million in ’22, $208.2 million to $224.8 million in ’23, $224.8 million to $255.4 million in ’24, and has now increased from $255.4 million to $279.2 million. The four-year, $96.7 million jump is about the same as the 13-year jump in the cap from ’07 ($102.0 million) to ’20 ($198.2 million) before the COVID-19 hit was taken.
That’s incredible. Rapid growth has left teams with every resource they need to keep the players they want. Forget about just the quarterbacks. If you have a left tackle, receiver, corner, or pass rusher you want to retain, there’s almost no chance he gets to free agency. And if there’s even a hint it could happen? He’ll be traded ahead of time.
So that leaves you with a “really bad group overall.”
But that doesn’t mean guys won’t get paid, or there won’t be hidden gems to find. It puts the onus on the coaches and scouts to dig out the difference-makers. Last year, the Washington Commanders did, using good scouting and intel through connections to turn over more than half the roster—just 19 players from the 2023 team were on the 53-man roster that coach Dan Quinn and GM Adam Peters brought to Philadelphia for the NFC championship game.
How can a team do that this year?
We’re going to try to sort through that for everyone this week in The MMQB Lead.
