The NFL’s legal tampering window opened up Monday, and boy did we see some tampering. All but four of The Ringer’s top 20 free agents already have agreed to terms on new contracts that can be signed on Wednesday, or received franchise-tag designations. Of course, fans of every team who landed one of these free agents on Monday think their team got a whole lot better. And fans of teams who haven’t made a big move yet likely believe their teams are being smart with their money. But which of Monday’s moves actually are savvy, which teams might have overpaid, who landed in a good spot, and who might regret these decisions? Here are six takeaways from a wild first day of free agency.
Kirk Cousins can’t miss.
Tom Brady retired with north of $330 million in earnings for his 23-year NFL career. Peyton Manning nearly hit $250 million in his 18 years in the league. Kirk Cousins, who is entering his age-36 season, is coming off an Achilles tear, and has a career 1-3 playoff record, will clear $400 million in career earnings over 16 seasons if he plays out the duration of the new contract he agreed to with the Falcons. Cousins’s latest master class in check-cashing is a four-year, $180 million deal that includes $100 million in guarantees. Per NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero, Cousins gets $90 million—his 2024 and 2025 salaries—guaranteed at signing. Another $10 million in guarantees for the 2026 season kick in next March. At $45 million per year, he’s making the same annual salary as Patrick Mahomes—tied for the eighth-most among active players. I will not debate you on this: Cousins is my GOAT. Nobody has gamed the system better.
That said, even if it is an overpay by Atlanta, handing Cousins another enormous bag is a smart move for the Falcons. He immediately makes Atlanta the team to beat in the NFC South and gives the team a legitimate opportunity to develop its über-talented core of skill-position players like wide receiver Drake London, tight end Kyle Pitts, and running back Bijan Robinson, all of whom are still on rookie contracts. This is a win-win for both sides—though I’d argue no one is winning more than Cousins year in and year out—even with questions surrounding his age and the Achilles injury.
The Panthers continue to confound.
Nothing is going right in Carolina. In less than two years, the team has traded away its three best players—Christian McCaffrey in 2022, D.J. Moore in 2023, and now, pass rusher Brian Burns—and has next to nothing to show for it. The rebuild is headed in the opposite direction.
Trading away Burns for a second- and a fifth-round pick isn’t horrible in a vacuum. However, it becomes much worse when you consider that the Panthers reportedly declined an offer from the Rams for Burns at the 2022 trade deadline that included two future first-round picks. Throw in the fact that the Panthers traded away the best running back in the league for four picks, none higher than a second-rounder, and included Moore in a trade package to move up to no. 1 in the draft and secure quarterback Bryce Young, and the pattern of disastrous moves becomes impossible to ignore. Even Luke Combs has seen enough.
Burns is exactly the type of player good teams pay early and bad teams let walk for pennies on the dollar. He is still just 25 years old, has played north of 700 defensive snaps each of the last four years, and his ability to affect the quarterback is consistently among the best in the league. He has at least 40 pressures and eight sacks in each of his last four seasons in Carolina. The Panthers, the worst team in the NFL, are even worse without him.
The Raiders want to be aggressive.
Raiders general manager Tom Telesco and head coach Antonio Pierce came out swinging in free agency. The new regime agreed to terms with former Dolphins defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, a top-five player at his position and arguably the best player on the open market Monday, to a whopping four-year, $110 million contract that includes $84.75 million in guarantees. The positives to this signing should be obvious: Wilkins is a game-wrecker, and he will be a force multiplier when paired up with star pass rusher Maxx Crosby on the defensive line. The Raiders defense played great in the second half of last season (notably after Josh McDaniels was fired as head coach, and Pierce took over the team), and Wilkins makes that unit even better. He is also exactly the kind of player Pierce wants in the locker room—tough, loud, mean, and durable. Wilkins has played 900-plus snaps in back-to-back seasons and hasn’t had a season with fewer than 600 snaps in his five-year career, according to PFF.
What Wilkins isn’t, however, is an upgrade to the quarterback room, and veteran Gardner Minshew—the other big-name free agent who agreed to terms with the Raiders on Monday—isn’t much of one, either. The Raiders still rank 13th in the AFC in Super Bowl odds for a reason; Wilkins nor Minshew change the fact that the team is still a ways away from being a legitimate contender.
Minshew looks like a plan B for Las Vegas if the board doesn’t fall its way in the 2024 draft. The Raiders aren’t planning to sign him to a pedestrian two-year, $25 million contract just to hand him the keys to the offense. His deal is eerily similar to the ones signed by other journeyman quarterbacks in recent years, like Andy Dalton in Carolina and Mitchell Trubisky in Pittsburgh, who eventually backed up highly drafted rookies. Minshew will likely compete with second-year quarterback Aidan O’Connell for the backup job if (or when) the Raiders add another quarterback via trade (they might be a landing spot for Justin Fields) or in the draft.
And if the Wilkins signing is any indication, Telesco and Pierce will want to keep swinging—in free agency and the draft. But until they land a long-term quarterback, how much will it matter? Expect the Raiders to be one of the key players in the trade-up market come draft day.
Does anyone want Justin Fields?
The Chicago Bears could not have liked the way the quarterback market has played out. With Cousins heading to Atlanta, Minshew to Las Vegas, and Jacoby Brissett to New England—and with Sam Darnold as a front-runner to sign with either the Broncos or Vikings—the trade market for Fields has all but dried up.
Though general manager Ryan Poles said at the NFL combine he’d like to get a trade done before free agency, now it seems like the Bears are likely better off holding on to Fields at least through the draft. Fields will have more value to a team that misses out on its preferred quarterback in the draft or to a team that loses its starter to an injury during the season before the trade deadline. If the Bears do find a trade partner soon, it seems like it would only be with a team that wants Fields as a backup (and they’d likely get only backup trade value in return). Teams that might make sense are the Colts, Eagles, Ravens, and Giants. The Colts, with head coach Shane Steichen and second-year quarterback Anthony Richardson, will likely pick up where they left off with the designed quarterback running game when a healthy Richardson returns as the starter. The Eagles and Ravens similarly leaned heavily on designed quarterback rushes in 2023, and the Giants simply could use some competition for Daniel Jones.
Running backs still matter (sort of).
Nine (!!!) running backs agreed to multiyear deals with new teams on Monday, and while none of these players reset the market for running backs, there was decent money to be had at a position that has been devalued in recent years.
Running Backs in Free Agency (2024)
There are four obvious trends with the latest running back deals:
1. It’s hard to get a contract longer than three years. Teams are well aware of how fast running back production can fall off as players approach age 30 and are clearly wary of committing to players through even their age-29 seasons. Even Josh Jacobs’s four-year contract has only $12.5 million in guaranteed money; the Packers could easily get out of the deal after the first year.
2. Running backs will regularly sign incentive-laden contracts tied to production. The “up to” language will likely become most common with running back contracts moving forward. Tony Pollard, Devin Singletary, Saquon Barkley, and Austin Ekeler all agreed to contracts Monday that include production incentives to boost their maximum values. For a running back to break the bank, he’ll have to earn it on the field.
3. Guaranteed money is hard to come by. It’s surprising that Barkley even got as much guaranteed money as he did, but the structure of the deal will still likely allow the Eagles to move off of Barkley after the 2025 season.
4. The NFL isn’t jumping at the opportunity to sign older running backs. The Packers on Monday released Aaron Jones (29) and replaced him with Jacobs (26). Derrick Henry (30) is still on the open market. The Bengals got a year-plus younger when they cut Joe Mixon (27) and signed Zack Moss (26). After a rush on mostly younger backs on Monday, it will be interesting to see what the older group of running backs gets in the next wave of deals.
[Whispers] I like Russell Wilson’s signing with the Steelers.
It’s impossible to argue that signing quarterback Wilson to a one-year deal at the veteran minimum is bad value. He is coming off the two worst years of his career, yet he still ranked ahead of the Steelers’ Kenny Pickett in expected points added per dropback last season. Wilson is an upgrade over Pickett without question. He won’t win the team a Super Bowl, but he will keep a Steelers team that wants to stay competitive right where it wants to be through the 2024 season (if he can actually figure out how to throw over the middle of the field in Arthur Smith’s offense). Smith, the new Steelers offensive coordinator, has previously asked his quarterbacks to work the middle of the field a lot. Did Smith and Wilson agree to a new philosophy in the hours-long meetings they had before signing? Maybe. But I doubt Smith completely reinvented the wheel for Wilson; there will still be pieces of the Smith offense we’ve come to know and love (or hate?). Wilson’s ability to adjust his game to meet Smith’s expectations will be the deciding factor in whether he’ll start over Pickett come September.
