Winners and Losers of the Free Agency so far
By Steve Risser
On Wednesday, the league year began and in this article, I’m going to give you my winners and losers from free agency so far.
Winners
1. Tampa Bay Buccaneers- A couple weeks ago, I thought there was no way that the Bucs would be able to bring back all their key players from their championship team that were free agents, but they did. First, they franchised Chris Godwin, then Tom Brady restructured his contract to free up 19 million in cap space, which resulted in them having the money to sign Lavonte David to a 2-year 25 million dollar deal. In addition to franchising Godwin and resigning David, they were able to resign Shaq Barrett at 4 years 72 million and they resigned Tom Brady’s favorite target, Rob Gronkowski, at 1 year 10 million. All of these moves make the Bucs the clear favorite to win it all again this year.
2. New England Patriots- After missing the playoffs for the first time in 12 years, Tom Brady’s old team was the by far the most active in free agency. First, they were able to sign the 2 best tight ends on the market, Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith. They also were able to get a good pass rusher by signing Matt Judon. The last couple years, the Pats receiving core has been weak. They improved it by signing Nelson Agholor and they also signed a couple former Dolphins that will help their team, which include Kyle Van Noy and Davon Godchaux. Lastly, I think all of these moves make the Pats close to a playoff team and if they can find a solution at QB in the draft, I think they’re back to being contenders in the AFC.
3. Kanas City Chiefs- Last week, there was some concern in the direction this team was going in after they released both of their tackles, Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz. Seeing what happened in the Super Bowl, there had to be. But this week, the Chiefs addressed these issues on the offensive line signing Joe Thuney to a 5-year 80 million dollar deal and they also signed Kyle Long. These moves make the Chiefs o-line good enough to where their offense should be as explosive as it’s been the last 3 years.
Losers
1. Chicago Bears- The Bears made a push to sign Russell Wilson this offseason, but it looks like the Seahawks are not trading him, so plan B was to sign Andy Dalton to a 1 year 10 million dollar deal. If this ends up being the plan, a QB GM Ryan Pace should be fired before the season starts and Allen Robinson should not sign his franchise tender and force a trade out of Chicago.
2. Las Vegas Raiders- I know the Raiders did sign Yannick Ngakoue, but the reason why I have them as one of my losers in free agency is that they traded away more than half of their offensive line away. Before free agency, they traded Trent Brown to the Pats for a 5th round pick 2022. They also traded Gabe Jackson to the Seahawks for a 5th round pick but the move that made no sense was trading Rodney Hudson to the Cards for a 3rd round pick. That move put the Raiders O-line in the bottom half of the league and if you look Derek Carr over the last 5 years, he has been good when the O-line has been good and when the O-line has struggled, he has struggled.
3. Seattle Seahawks- Russell Wilson has made it known how unhappy he’s been with the Seahawks and a big reason for that is how bad they have been on the offensive line for most of his career. In free agency, they traded for Gabe Jackson, but they did not make the big move of signing Joe Thuney or Corey Linsley to make their O-line significantly better. If the O-Line does not get better, it is going to be hard to put them in a conversation for the Super Bowl.
