The velocity of the NFL calendar precludes ceremonial goodbyes. Saquon Barkley’s tenure as the face of the New York Giants ended with the abrupt posting of twin eagle emojis. Aaron Jones, one of the great Green Bay Packers ever, was offered a pay cut one day and became a Minnesota Viking the next. Kirk Cousins started more games at quarterback for the Vikings than all but two other men, and his exit included a torn Achilles’ in Week 8 and a social media announcement from his agent.
But that’s free agency. With most of the major dominoes having fallen, here is what to know.
The Atlanta Falcons will find out the value of their offensive investment. They infamously used top-10 picks in three consecutive drafts on a tight end (Kyle Pitts), wide receiver (Drake London) and running back (Bijan Robinson). They seemed to believe stars at the skill positions and a strong offensive line could overcome a patchwork procession of quarterbacks. Marcus Mariota, Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke all failed, and it cost Arthur Smith his job.
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Under new coach Raheem Morris, the Falcons are done betting on hope at quarterback. They agreed on a four-year, $180 million contract with Cousins, who should be healed by training camp. What the Falcons are paying for is competence, professionalism and a high floor. They are no longer one bad quarterback decision away from calamity.
Cousins may not differentiate the Falcons in January. But he will run Atlanta’s offense smoothly, and if the Falcons draft the right skill players, their offense will look how they wanted it to look all along. Signing Cousins is enough to nudge Atlanta ahead of the defending division champions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as the favorite in the NFC South.
The Carolina Panthers are bad for a reason. Trading Brian Burns, an excellent but not quite elite pass rusher, for second- and fifth-round picks rather than paying him a massive contract is a reasonable move. The way Carolina arrived at it was completely incoherent and falls in line with how the team has squandered resources in recent years.
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At the 2022 trade deadline, the Panthers could not come to an agreement on an extension with Burns, and he became a coveted prize. The Los Angeles Rams reportedly offered two first-round picks for him. Carolina rebuffed them. The team went on to win eight of its next 28 games, earning the first pick in the 2024 draft, which it must send to the Chicago Bears as part of a deal it made last year to acquire the first pick, used on Bryce Young.
It continues a trend of mismanaging capital. The Panthers did not receive a first-round pick for Christian McCaffrey, and when they traded up to draft Young — not the consensus first pick at the time and a potential bust at present — they tossed in DJ Moore as if he were a role player.
The other side of this week’s trade isn’t much better. It’ll be difficult for the Giants to reap any surplus value out of Burns’s five-year, $141 million deal, even setting aside the draft picks it took to acquire him. Burns will be 26 next year. He’s an athletic marvel. He said last season that playing on a contract year for a team headed nowhere affected him. But he ranked as Pro Football Focus’s 29th-best edge rusher last season, when he compiled eight sacks, and he has never been a strong run defender. Maybe he’s just entering his prime and he’ll punch up superstar production next to Dexter Lawrence and Kayvon Thibodeaux. The Giants are paying a lot to find out.
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Someone is wrong about Justin Fields. Either the Bears are overvaluing him or the league is undervaluing him. General Manager Ryan Poles indicated at the combine that he wanted to provide Fields resolution. But Fields remains in limbo as most quarterback-needy teams not at the top of the draft signed stopgap options in free agency.
It’s clear why teams have not jumped at Fields. They’d have to relinquish draft capital, then immediately feel pressure to extend him. He’s not a surefire franchise pillar like Cousins. He’s not a cheap reclamation like Russell Wilson or Sam Darnold. He doesn’t provide the same combination of unknown ceiling and inexpensive contract as drafting a quarterback.
Fields is still a bet worth making. His blend of athletic traits makes him the kind of quarterback teams win because of, not just with or in spite of. He played the best football of his career after returning from an injury in the second half of last season.
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Somebody will blink and take a chance on him. But that might not be until the draft, when a team hoping to take a swing finds all of its desired passers have been taken. The Bears would lose some leverage having already presumably drafted Caleb Williams, but nobody believes they aren’t doing that, anyway.
It’s hard to discern the Vikings’ plan. General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is one of the most patient, value-oriented executives in the NFL. In the past two years, he built one playoff roster and another that was headed to the postseason until quarterback attrition doomed the season. Kevin O’Connell has proved himself one of the top young offensive minds in football. There’s a lot of good happening in Minnesota.
But it’s also hard to understand what the Vikings want to be. In the final years of Cousins’s contract, they never made an all-in push. But they weren’t rebuilding, either, making small moves in the draft to trade back and accumulate more capital. Without Cousins, their path to contention is gone. Meanwhile, in Justin Jefferson, the Vikings have one of the best players in the NFL whose clock is ticking toward an extension. They also have T.J. Hockenson, an elite tight end on a good contract.
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At quarterback, Darnold is a nice upside play. He was the third pick in the 2018 draft, he’s 26, and the Vikings will pay him just $10 million this season. Quarterbacks coach Josh McCown backed him up when both played for the New York Jets, and maybe that familiarity, combined with a season spent learning as a backup in Kyle Shanahan’s system, will help unlock something that hasn’t surfaced.
But what exactly are the Vikings hoping to accomplish with Darnold? It doesn’t seem to be in Adofo-Mensah’s style to make a big trade up in the draft, and that would be required for the Vikings to pick one of the top three — if not four — quarterbacks. Losing Cousins placed the Vikings’ ascent on pause, but they have plenty of good players left over. They need to pick a lane.
The Las Vegas Raiders aren’t afraid. They’re the last team to beat the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, who have bullied the rest of the division during Patrick Mahomes’s majestic tenure. Several AFC West offseasons have created the delusion that a rival could pose a legitimate challenge to the Chiefs. The Raiders, at least, aren’t scared to keep trying.
Defensive lineman Christian Wilkins, who agreed to sign with the Raiders for $110 million over four years, might be the best player to change teams. He’s an excellent run defender who provides plenty of pass rush from the interior or the edge. He will be a perfect high-motor complement to Maxx Crosby, and if 2023 first-rounder Tyree Wilson can tap into his potential, the Raiders’ pass rush will be scary. Either way, Wilkins taking on Chiefs interior linemen Trey Smith, Joe Thuney and Creed Humphrey twice a season will make for trench-nerd heaven.
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Las Vegas lost Josh Jacobs, a key offensive cog. (Couldn’t the team have made a play for Derrick Henry to replace Jacobs? Wouldn’t Henry have looked the part in silver and black?) But the Raiders have gathered momentum under Coach Antonio Pierce.
The Philadelphia Eagles went big-game hunting at a reasonable price. The end of last season made clear Howie Roseman received far too much credit for perceived masterstrokes last offseason. But the Eagles came out of free agency’s opening days as clear winners.
They may have agreed to sign Barkley to a splashy deal (three years, $37.75 million) at the top of the running back market. But that market has become so depressed in recent years that Barkley’s contract will not burden the Eagles’ salary cap, and Barkley is both explosive and a great fit.
He’s a superstar in reputation who has more flaws in his game upon deep inspection — he tends to be boom-or-bust and doesn’t break many tackles for a back of his size and speed. But he’s without question a top-tier running back, and his straight-line speed is an ideal fit in Philadelphia’s zone-read-heavy running game. The scheme will let Barkley get a running start before contact, which is when he thrives.
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Philadelphia’s other big signing was the opposite: an underrated player at a premium position. Bryce Huff, formerly of the Jets, is a top-tier pass rusher hiding in plain sight. He had a better 2023 than Burns, and the Eagles acquired him without sacrificing a draft pick and for $11 million less per season, on a deal that will pay him $51.1 million over three years.
Huff led the NFL by pressuring quarterbacks on 21.8 percent of his pass rushes, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats. Still just 25, he could be an elite player if his production starts to line up with his underlying metrics.
The Baltimore Ravens recommitted to the run. The last time we saw them, they were abandoning their identity in a home AFC championship game loss, handing the ball to their running backs just six times. Should they return to the penultimate weekend, the presence of Henry, their new star rusher, will presumably prevent them from forgetting to run the ball again.
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Ravens Coach John Harbaugh will sometimes say about a veteran acquisition: “He was always a Raven. We just didn’t know it until he got here.” Henry is that kind of player. He seems to be a perfect fit schematically — a bigger, stronger version of Gus Edwards — if he can resist the typical running back aging curve and play near his peak at 30. He also brings unmatched character, a bruising style and the résumé of one of the NFL’s best players of the past decade. The Ravens know better than anyone: Henry ran for 195 yards and threw for a touchdown during Baltimore’s disastrous upset loss as the top seed after the 2019 season.
The Ravens can rely on Keaton Mitchell, who should return midseason from a knee injury, and underrated Justice Hill to keep Henry fresh late in the season. They have the MVP at quarterback in Lamar Jackson, and they’ll again feature one of the best running games in the NFL.
Guard is becoming a premium position. Ahead of free agency, Landon Dickerson signed a watershed contract for interior linemen. Dickerson, who could replace retired Jason Kelce at center or stick at guard, agreed to a four-year, $84 million extension with the Eagles. In terms of average annual value, it set a new benchmark for guards — and also surpassed any contract given to a right tackle.
The Panthers continued to reset the guard market when they agreed to give former Dolphin Robert Hunt $100 million ($63 million guaranteed) over five years. The New England Patriots re-signed Michael Onwenu for $57 million over three years, and Jonah Jackson left the Detroit Lions for the Rams for $51 million over three years — giving the Rams a second high-priced guard to go with Kevin Dotson, whom they recently extended for $16 million per season.
The increase in guards’ value is tied to the league’s increased emphasis on interior pass rush. Defenses deploy more third-down packages that kick bigger defensive ends to the inside. Young defensive tackles such as Baltimore’s Justin Madubuike and the Rams’ Kobie Turner have modeled polished pass-rush games after Kansas City’s Chris Jones and Rams star Aaron Donald. Defenses know the best way to disrupt passing games based on short, quick throws is with instant pressure up the middle. It has made guards crucial to pass protection, and teams are willing to pay for it.
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