Free agency in the NFL started on Tuesday. It has been wild with players signing huge deals and trades being tendered. Here are some of the players’ deals and trades.
The Miami Dolphins now have one of the best defensive linemen in the game with Ndamukong Suh. He agreed to a 6 year, $114 million contract, with $60 million guaranteed. This is the richest deal for a defensive lineman in NFL history. In his five years with the Lions he had 36 sacks. This is a guy who can put pressure on the quarterback. The only downside is his on-field antics. He has been fined for stomping on opponents. This past December he stepped on Aaron Rogers. That cost him $70,000. He is a great player who will help the Dolphins but he needs to be smarter.
The Detroit Lions lost a defensive lineman, but they decided to trade for the Baltimore Ravens Haloti Ngata. Suh is a much better defense player but Ngata will help the Lions. Ngata has 25.5 career sacks. They still have a player who can sack the quarterback and force him to throw sooner than he wants to.
There were two other major trades on Tuesday. The first was between the St. Louis Rams and the Philadelphia Eagles. They swapped quarterbacks. The Rams acquired Nick Foles and draft picks, this years’ 4th-round pick and a 2nd-round pick in 2016. Philadelphia receives Sam Bradford and St. Louis’ 5th-round pick this year. This is not a great trade for the Eagles. Sam Bradford was drafted in 2010 but has only played two full seasons, 2010 and 2012. He is an excellent quarterback when healthy. He has thrown for 11,065 yards in his career thus far. The Eagles now have a quarterback competition for the starting job between Bradford and Mark Sanchez. This now means that Philadelphia won’t trade up in the draft to pick Marcus Mariota.
This is a decent trade for the Rams. Foles is now the starter. They have been searching for a quarterback to lead this team. Foles is a guy who will find the open receivers and move the chains. The Rams are now a better team.
A trade that didn’t make any sense was the New Orleans Saints trading tight end Jimmy Graham and a 4th-round pick to Seattle for center Max Unger and the 31st pick in the draft. Jimmy Graham is one of the most reliable tight ends in the game. He caught 386 passes for 4,752 yards and 51 touchdowns so far in his career. Drew Brees always looked for him in the end zone because he was such a big target. He rarely drops the ball. Brees will have to find a different receiver to throw the ball to in those critical situations down near the goal line. This gives Russell Wilson an excellent pass catcher who will use his height and speed to run past the defenders on his way to catching the football. Seattle is now more dangerous on offense. These are a few of the deals so far in free agency. Expect more players to sign with teams.
What has been the best signing or trade deal in free agency so far?
It is too early. to know which trades will be good. We just have to wait to see what happens.
That is true. On paper it looks great but will it be? We will wait and see for sure.
So far the best signings and trades have came from teams who have elected to lock up their own players and add cheaper pieces in FA. The Patriots locked up McCourty and signed Sheard (who has played out of position his whole career in Cleveland imo), The Bengals locked up Malaluga, Boling, and brought in AJ Hawk for cheap, and passed on over paying Fairley. The Redskins got out of deals that went too high and are showing an unusual amount of poise, plus I like Paea if they use him situationally, plus Knighton will keep blockers engaged so they can Guage their LB’S a little bit better. Dallas not jumping out the tree to sign DeMarco is a plus. I feel like Miami is trying to be this year’s March winners and that never translates to January so I’m personally happy my team is just waiting for the dust to settle.
Good points. Although the Cowboys did sign Darren Mcfadden today to try and replace Murray. He is a great runner but can’t stay healthy. If you ask me they should have made a deal with CJ Spiller who is much better runner.
I agree DMC is not a great signing at all. I believe he was actually healthy all year just ineffective. For the Cowboys to take a risk on aging HBs, especially ones with injury history, there were better options in my opinion. Knowshon has had more recent success with the same past, Ahmad Bradshaw is always productive when healthy, CJ2K seems to stay healthy and didn’t look horrible last year, and there are some other backs who haven’t really got a shot and could definitely be part of a committee approach like J. Rodgers, J. Dwyer, T. Cadet, P. Thomas. But the real head scratcher is why are the Cowboys signing any of these guys? This draft seems to be rich in RB talent, everywhere from 1st rounders to mid round guys…… I actually read a post from an ESPN forum and clicked your link. And though I disagreed with what you said, it was thought out and not just some fan making comments because his team was burned or something. That is why I came here and just felt like you should know Jordan Long.
Darren McFadden was good on NCAA. He’s a fun guy to play with on NCAA. EA Sports, it’s in the game.