Top 10 Biggest Losers of the 2021 NFL Free Agency
Let's continue our journey into the free-agent market with teams I felt didn't do a good job building where they needed to. I will talk about the good small portions as well as factor in trade deals as well. To reflect on the thinking moving forward into the 2021 NFL Draft.Best Moves: Signing Anthony Harris/trading down for extra draft picks.
Worst Move: 90% of Howie Roseman's fault.
Let's see. They fired the best head coach the team has ever had to win a Super Bowl. They got a terrible return deal to dump Carson Wentz to Indy. They refused to trade Zach Ertz, who wants no part of this regime.
Would Jason Kelce want to stick around as the team rebuilds? Philly looks like a team that could finish possibly at the top somewhere, even with more picks at their disposal. Do you trust the man who killed your golden years with the team?
Best Move: Tagging Allen Robinson.
Worst Moves: Signing Andy Dalton/downgrading at Cornerback.
The Bears had a shot at Russell Wilson, and what did they do? They panicked in absolute embarrassment. Instead of taking a rookie QB, they immediately signed Andy Dalton. They nearly lost Akiem Hicks and cut Kyler Fuller to have Desmond Trufant fill in.
You wonder why Ryan Pace is a joke. Congratulations, you have set up Matt Nagy to fail again. Making the playoffs looks like nothing more than a waste of a season of mediocrity.
Best Move: Signing K.J. Wright.
Worst Moves: Trading away your top three starting offensive linemen.
Some signings are fine defensively speaking. On the other hand, trading away your best three linemen is quite bold. If you ask me, I'm selling on this offense. This thing could be falling apart thanks to some ego-tripping by Mike Mayock.
Best Move: Signing Marvin Jones.
Worst Moves: The majority of these signings look like huge gambles.
In this rebuild Jacksonville has upon them, I'd be cautious buying into it. One of those red flags is Trent Baalke. It looks like his approach was to sign a lot of castoffs from various teams. Some of these could fit well, while others I'm not entirely sold on.
You better give Lawrence all he can because right now, this is off to a very bad start in my view.
Best Move: Replacing Todd Gurley with Mike Davis.
Worst Move: Not improving/fixing the guard position.
Atlanta is supposedly in a rebuild, but they don't seem to be in any hurry to push out Matt Ryan or even Julio Jones for that matter. I get that this team has the most first-round picks stashed. Sometimes you gotta make some room to sign players, which they just don't seem like they'll do.
Kudos on getting Mike Davis, but even then, being this quiet in free agency doesn't sound very good for Atlanta fans.
Best Move: Tagging Marcus Williams.
Worst Move: Capital salary wrecking any chance to maintain the core players on defense.
Drew Brees retired as expected, but what else could happen from there? The table was set for them to fail to keep every player, being the worst with their cap situation. They had to choose between Marcus Williams and Trey Hendrickson. I'd say they made the right call to keep the secondary over the D-line.
This will make them zero in on their biggest need between the tackle or the opposite end to Cameron Jordan. The Saints are pointing the other way, but unless they do well enough in the draft to pick up the pieces, they're in trouble.
Best Move: Alualu having sudden second thoughts about leaving.
Worst Move: Retaining JuJu Smith-Schuster.
The Steelers usually don't do much in free agency. The rare saving grace was Tyson Alualu pulling a 180 on the Jaguars. On the other hand, the other moves are just questionable.
Smith-Schuster was hitting the market and decided to stay in Pittsburgh. I would have taken that Baltimore offer. Seeing how deep the receiving corps has gotten, JuJu would be the odd one out, not even feeling like a WR1. He is more of a WR2 at this rate.
You're riding with Ben one last time, with no intention of drafting a QB. This feels a lot like the Red Wings in my view with the way this is moving. They had to cut ties with some quality players on defense, and it looks like it's all crashing down.
Best Move: Giving Dak the whole kitchen sink.
Worst Move: Lack of help on the aging offensive line.
I can't knock them for focusing on improving their defense. Still, it made me wonder if that huge payday for Dak may have hurt significantly in improving an O-line that frankly isn't heading in the right direction. They better do well in the draft. They have key difference-makers in other areas but just need to fill in help (protection) for Dak as the top priority.
Best Move: Signing Kenny Golladay/retaining Leonard Williams.
Worst Move: Grabbing unneeded scrubs.
I really wanted to rank the Giants higher for some of the oddest risky one-year deals out there. Injury-prone John Ross, a third-string running back from Las Vegas, and signing Mike Glennon. But not trading to get Gardner Minshew?
Danny Dimes looks like a bust to me. If you're going to motivate him to redeem himself, you bring a guy like that to light a fire under him, like what Green Bay did with Aaron Rodgers, and now San Francisco is doing with Jimmy G.
A lot of questionable signings for sure. Getting the likes of Kenny Golladay and ensuring Leonard Williams stayed made the most sense. Without these two things happening, they would have had a terrible showing.
Best Moves: Signing Will Fuller/trading down for extra picks.
Worst Move: Backfired/downgraded pickups on the Offensive Line.
If you ask me right now who did the worst in terms of getting much-needed upgrades, it's the Dolphins. The AFC East, for the most part, did a good enough job with what had to be done. The Dolphins, on the other hand, got hit hard when it came their turn.
They took a chance on Isaiah Wilson, who basically ended his career thanks to character issues. Losing ties to Kyle Van Noy hurts, and to top it off, they found no answers between tackle and center. This isn't going to help Tua get better if his protection is atrocious. They better draft well because Bill Belichick has wowed many so far with what he has done with New England.