Free Agency Folly?

[MJS]

11 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

By money it is Darnold (a reclamation project QB starter), Dan Moore Jnr (a slightly below average starting left tackle) and Milton Williams (a backup / rotational DT on the best defense in football). 

 

I'd personally say in terms of guys still within their peak and able to contribute the actual answer might be Charvarius Ward, Paulson Adebo and possibly Talanoa Hufanga. Ward is a CB1 who is leaving the bay area not just for football reasons, Adebo is a CB2 and Hufanga is a good not great safety.  Could throw Josh Sweat in there too but he is again a rotational edge used to coming in after the starters have wreaked havoc. Remains to be seen what he does when he is supposed to be "the guy".

 

It isn't spectacular is it?

I think Sweat is pretty good. But we'll see.

[GunnerBill]

1 hour ago, MJS said:

I think Sweat is pretty good. But we'll see.

 

I think he is pretty good too. But he isn't a star. 

[FireChans]

1 hour ago, Kirby Jackson said:

Not at all. To your point, you can get starters but rarely stars. It’s the middle class that gets paid by other teams.

To be fair, that’s kind of how it’s always been, right?

 

I mean sure there would be one or two big names that would be available occasionally. But it’s not like a decade ago, every year there was a Mario Williams type player who was hitting FA. That was unusual.

 

I think players have learned from the NBA. Get paid first, figure it out later. Now in the NBA there’s real financial incentive to sign with your team that drafted you because of the way supermaxes work, but with the amount of injuries in the NFL, it also makes sense to protect yourself. DK got paid and demanded a trade and got paid again. AJ Brown flirts with demanding a trade every 2 years it seems until they throw money at him. 
 

Does anyone think that Myles Garrett won’t demand a trade 2 years from now if he wants because he got paid this year? I don’t. I could easily see him bank another $80M and run the same playbook he did this offseason. 

Edited March 20 by FireChans

[MJS]

19 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

I think he is pretty good too. But he isn't a star. 

I think he could be a star. We'll see.

[Kirby Jackson]

10 minutes ago, FireChans said:

To be fair, that’s kind of how it’s always been, right?

 

I mean sure there would be one or two big names that would be available occasionally. But it’s not like a decade ago, every year there was a Mario Williams type player who was hitting FA. That was unusual.

 

I think players have learned from the NBA. Get paid first, figure it out later. Now in the NBA there’s real financial incentive to sign with your team that drafted you because of the way supermaxes work, but with the amount of injuries in the NFL, it also makes sense to protect yourself. DK got paid and demanded a trade and got paid again. AJ Brown flirts with demanding a trade every 2 years it seems until they throw money at him. 
 

Does anyone think that Myles Garrett won’t demand a trade 2 years from now if he wants because he got paid this year? I don’t. I could easily see him bank another $80M and run the same playbook he did this offseason. 

I think a few more Pro Bowl type of players used to hit the market. It was guys like Suh or Demarco Murray or Alston Jeffrey or Calais Campbell. The top FAs moved quite a bit if they weren’t tagged. I think you’re right though. It has become “get paid and figure it out.” Many more of the top guys seem to be staying with their teams.
 

There was a time when players were rarely traded, especially for other players!! Remember how weird the Kelvin Sheppard / Jerry Hughes trade was? 

[boater]

On 3/18/2025 at 10:34 PM, DeepPass said:

Is Free Agency just and NFL adventure to move very average or below players around the League?

Yes.

 

The Normal Distribution Curve applies. Most players are dreadfully average, they are in the meat of the curve.