The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Free agency day one recap: Seattle makes over its team, Rams sign Davante Adams, Washington trades for Laremy Tunsil, and more

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Geno Smith? Traded! DK Metcalf? Traded! Sam Darnold? Signed! The Seahawks entirely made over their team by the end of day one of free agency, and they weren't alone in completely recalibrating their outlook for 2025. From Davante Adams to the Rams, to Laremy Tunsil to the Commanders, to a defensive spending spree in New England, this offseason's free agency window got off to a roaring start. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen recap it all on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.RundownThe Seahawks remake their teamLaremy Tunsil to the CommandersRams sign Davante AdamsThe Pats go on a spending spreeA couple of left tackles cash inEffects on the draftJustin Fields to the JetsWhat all the linebackers staying put could meanFavorite fits from Monday's movesSurprise signings from MondayHost: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I am Robert Mays and I am exhausted. It is 6 p.m. Central Time in Chicago. We have been talking about free agency in some capacity for about seven and a half hours, me and Derek Classen. This is the podcast version of the five-hour live stream, five-and-a-half-hour live stream that we did earlier today. We didn't want to drop a five-and-a-half-hour live stream into your guys' podcast feeds.

I thought that was bad form and just not something that I wanted to do. So what we did after the five and a half hour live stream is we came back and did an 80 minute podcast recapping all of the signings that we had already talked about. So that is what you guys are listening to right now. We ran through some of the like, oh my God, moments from the last couple days, the Gino trade, the D.K. trade, Devante Adams going to the Rams, the Laramiemey Tunsel trade that none of us could have ever seen coming. Talked about some of the big money teams that threw money around today. Panther spending a bunch, Patriots spending. a bunch that Dan Moore contract, which has gotten tons of oxygen today, talked about the quarterback moves, the ones that have happened, the ones that are still to happen. Talked about the moves that

made sense, even in real time. Like, can't buy them going to the Colts. That was like, all right, I totally understand that one. Josh Sweck going to Cardinals, totally understand that one. Talked about ones that maybe didn't track quite as well. Once are a little bit more surprising, some team plans and some individual signings that snuck up on us a little bit. So that's what we it today with me and Derek, we're going to be back over the next few days hitting all of this stuff on individual shorter live streams in the afternoon. 4 p.m. Eastern each of the next three days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, on the Athletic Football Show YouTube channel, we will be live recapping the day's news. Those will be the

podcast you hear in your feed each of the next few days. So if you want to come join us at 4 p.m. Eastern, any of the next three days, please do. We would love to have you. The chat was great on today's live stream, and we would love to keep that going all week. So please come join us. One more thank you to everyone who joined the live stream today as a listener, and especially those who joined as guests. I'm going to forget people, but Mina Kimes, David Helman, Danny Parkins, Fran Duffy, Chase Daniel, Matt Harmon, Jordan Roderick, Mike Sando, sincerely appreciate everyone who spent their time on a very busy day to join us. We were live for five and a half hours, and I had a blast.

It went by much faster than it probably should have, given how much fun we were having and given the quality of the conversation. So please go check that out if you have any interest. And again, you want more context around some of these signings. But for now, this is the day one free agency recap with me and Derek Klesson. Let's get to it.

All right, Derek. It's time for us to pretend like we didn't just spend the last five and a half hours talking about all of this. But this is the nature of the beast. just as a heads up to everyone. If you want to go hear us talk about all of these moves, maybe even a little bit more detail, we have a five and a half hour stream on our YouTube channel,

the Athletic Football Show YouTube channel right now that we did all day on the first day of free agency. Unfortunately, we didn't want to drop a five and a half hour stream into the podcast feed. So what we're doing here is kind of a truncated version of that stream for you guys, the podcast audience, whom we deeply love and also want to serve. But if you want any more context, if you want to hear our real-time reactions to this stuff, you can go do that on the Athletic Football Show YouTube channel right now.

But just as a heads up, for me and Derek, we're on about hour six of talking about all this. Yeah, this is this morning to early afternoon. What's the marathon? This episode is the 400 meter. This is a little bit of a different event. The 400 meter is grueling. Are you kidding me? But it's faster than a marathon.

God, I hope it doesn't feel like running 400. I've only done the 400 like once or twice. Like back when I've never ran track. Oh, I've never ran track. Oh, I've really tracked days. Well, so here, let's go on a tangent immediately before we dig into the free agency stuff. So in my high school, if you, there were two reasons I did track in high school. One was the throwing coach at my high school's track.

My high school's track team was the offensive line coach of the football team. So sophomore year and junior year, I ran track. ran track in order to kind of score brownie points with the varsity offensive line coach because I was hoping to start by my junior year. So that's why I did it. The track, the disc is and shot in my high school was essentially we'd go out and throw the discus and the shot for like 20 minutes and then the offensive line would just go in and lift.

Like that, that's what track was. And the other selling point was if you did a sport, you didn't have to take gym. And so I did track after I was done playing baseball after my freshman year as a way to not have to take P.E. My sophomore or junior years. So my senior year, second semester, I had to take gym again for the first time in like three years, my last semester of high school. You didn't just keep it rolling with the, you didn't keep throwing? After football was over, there was like nothing that could have gotten me to play another sport. Like, they asked me to play all my friends on the basketball team. I had a great relationship with the coach. I play basketball

year. I played basketball year. I didn't play my junior year because I wanted to prepare for my senior your football season. And so they, senior year, they're like, do you want to come play on the basketball team? And I was like, nah. I just truly cannot justify going to more practices after playing football for like 12 weeks. Like, I'm done. I'm absolutely done. It was worth enduring gym to not have to do run track and go to practice every single day. Yeah, you got your last season out of your passions sport. Now you can just, it's time to chill. That's exactly what it was. It was time to start partying in a way that was maybe a little bit inappropriate or irresponsible. But that's what I second semester senior year. Speaking of parties, speaking of irresponsibility, let's get to the day in

free agency. We're going to start with the, let's just call them the holy shit moments from the last 48 to 72 hours, the moments that when we look back on these few days, these are the ones that are going to stick out. To me, it has to start with the Seahawks just remaking some of the most important positions on their entire roster. We've talked about this in some capacity like six times over the course of the day. Again, if you want to go see our discussions with Mina Kimes, there's a good context from Michael Sean Dugar. A bunch of that stuff is on the stream, but let's talk about it again. As you think about the Gino Smith and a third round pick for Sam Darnold swap here from Seattle, where does this leave you with the current state of the Seattle Seahawks?

I'm going to try to reframe it two different ways, basically pre and post trade, like before the trade actually happened. Pre-Geno trade, I kind of was optimistic. about where the Seahawks were going. Maybe got a little bit fortunate to win 10 games last year, but I liked where the defense was headed, one or two more pieces you could have sold me. The offensive line interior needed some work, but it was like, okay, DKMecath is going to be expensive,

but you could sell me on it. Gino, to me, is like a top 12 quarterback. You could see why they would compete for the top of the division next year. And then they trade Gino Smith, who I believe, again, is a very good quarterback. They get a third-round pick back, which that is not nothing.

A top 100 pick is nice. And all of that I was struggling with. Then they trade D.K. Metcalf. So now you're trading your quarterback, one of your two best pass catchers. And then they go and sign Sam Darnold, who I think would have made a lot of sense for Minnesota to resign because of the familiarity with him, how good the situation the setup was. None of the setup that applies in Minnesota is president in Seattle. And so that is why I have struggled with it so far. The DK trade and the Gino trade of two different things to me.

Yeah, I agree. So I prompted you with a potential D.K. trade. I mean, when was that? December when I kind of came to the conclusion that I think that they're best suited to trade DK. And that was when they were up against it with the cap. And they've since caught a bunch of guys and created a decent amount of cap space. But still with Gino's contract on the books, this is not a team flush with space. And I thought the pick that they could get for DK.

And I always thought it would probably be something that landed around a second. But a second round pick in $30 million a year, I would rather have those resources elsewhere. than D.K. McKFath. And so that part of it I was fine with. The Gino part is a little bit tougher to stomach. And if you want to go listen to our conversation with Michael Sean, he was adamant that this is not a team that was taking a significant step back on purpose. Like they were not trying to tear this thing down even a little bit. They want to win now and there's urgency to win now. And so I think on paper, if you're going to look at it and you're the Seahawks and you say we can either have Gino Smith or we can have Sam Darnold on a lesser price and to the Seahawks and you say we can either have Gino Smith or we can have Sam Darnold on a lesser price and third round pick. I get that as like a theoretical exercise because Sam's seven yards younger. He knows Clint Kubiak. He knows this offensive system. And there's selling points to that. But I think there's a lot of risk in moving on from a quarterback like Gino. We saw Sam be good for one year in a pretty darn good situation in Minnesota, not the best pass protection, but significantly better than what they were dealing with in Seattle over the last couple years. And you get Kevin

O'Connell, Justin Jefferson, Jordan, Addison. It's a good situation. It's not going to be quite as good of a situation in Seattle, even if the scheme change can mitigate some of the offensive line concerns. So I get it with if you're John Schneider and saying, we got lines in the sand here. Like I'd rather have Sam at 37 million in a third round pick than Gina who's seven years older at 45 million without that pick. That's fine. But if you're also going to try to sell that you're doing what you can to win this year, I think that you're probably worse a quarterback than you were. And I think it's more of an uphill battle to get to those 10 games again. That's exactly where. am I and like it just feels like I understand why their thought process was getting a third back and getting

10 million dollars cheaper and younger at quarterback made sense but with sam darnald specifically again i've said this a hundred times the thing with darnold is if you crush the pocket on him a little bit and speed things up he's going to crumble a little bit and that's the one it's the biggest issue on the seattle roster right now is their offensive line is not good and maybe they fix that and maybe i'll feel differently but until then i don't love it. It just feels to me like you're paying for something that's going to end up closer to Carolina Panthers Sam Darnold than Minnesota Vikings Sam Darnold, which is not the worst starting quarterback in the league, but it's not what I think that they think they're paying for. I do believe that his time in San Francisco and his experience with O'Connell has appreciably

changed him as a quarterback. I think there's still going to be moments that are scary and moments that are frustrating. But I do think that we're going to see a better version of him moving forward, even if the circumstances around him deteriorate a little bit from Minnesota to Seattle. And again, I think that the familiarity with Kubiak, who he worked with in San Francisco during his one year there, I do think that matters. But I just think if you're looking at Seattle's offensive situation overall, the idea of going out and getting Clint Kubiak and moving to an offensive system that we think can hide some of our offensive line talent after we had an offensive system last year that left it baking in the sun for everyone to see, that to me felt like the right middle ground approach where we don't need to change everything. We just need to tweak some of the things that we're doing here. So trading DK, getting a second and all that and that $30 million and using some of that

XX savings to sign a guard and free agency or upgrade the interior offensive line, draft the vertical receiver, and then saying with all of those, with those pieces and with the scheme change, we feel like we're going to put Gino in a much better spot and we think that's going to be enough for us to have a decidedly above average offense. We like the trajectory of our defense. That's where I was hoping they would land because I think that's a reasonable place to be because I'm a huge fan of Gino Smith. But they ultimately decided to take it to a more extreme place than that.

That's the thing. I think with the right breaks and that happening, you could sell me on this team winning the division. I mean, they almost won it last year. Obviously needed some breaks. But like, you could sell me on them winning the division. With the way the roster is now, I think there's no shot they can even touch the division. If you want to make the argument that like cap-wise, they're set up better for three years from now,

then they would have been if they had Gino and D.K. And kept them, then that's fine. It's just like, I'm usually on the side of like, if you really think that you can win divisions and potentially win playoff games, just keep competing. I didn't love that they chose not to do that. I'm not out on what the best version of this can look like. I think that there is at least a chance that we see something close to Minnesota. to Sam Darnold, that again, he is

changed player seems extreme. But again, we're closer to what we saw last year than what we had seen previously. I'm open to that idea. And again, I'm open to looking at the price tags and thinking, Sam for $8 million, cheaper plus the pick, is better for me than Gino. I think in the best case scenario, this hits and they're still a really good

team. I just don't feel nearly as comfortable with it because I'd seen Gino do it for multiple years in shitty circumstances. And I know the receiving talent was good, we need to stop doing this, where, oh, look at the receivers on the depth chart. This is a good situation. It's just not true. It wasn't true in Chicago last year. It wasn't true in Houston last year. And it wasn't true in Seattle for the last two years. Pass protection and how easy the scheme makes it on quarterbacks are more important when we're judging a quarterback's performance than what their receiving talent looks like. I think we need to

come to terms with that. And I think that's the right way to think about this. And with that in mind, I just think that I have more evidence over a multi-year span that Gino Smith is a quality quarterback than I do with Sam Darnold, while again, also being open to the idea that even if it feels a little bit more fragile, there is still a path to this working the way that they envision it. That's a good way to put it. There is something on the table where it could fall out that way. But with Gino, I was confident they could get to that spot.

With Darnold, it feels like you're taking a gamble here. Let's talk about the sealer side of this for a second. before we move on. I get it. I think, again, I would not want to give this to D.K. I think that he is a good but not great player. And $30 million a year plus a second round pick is a huge price to pay, in my opinion, for any single player regardless of a position. And he's just not the sort of needle mover for me that a price like this would justify. But this is a team that has shown a real level of urgency and borderline desperation at receiver over the last calendar year. They were in on Brandon Ayyuk.

They wanted to make this happen. I don't think they really believe in George Pickens as like even a 1B within an offense. And so I think there really was a high level of urgency here for this team in this position specifically. And this is ultimately the route that they chose. In a vacuum on paper, it's just too much for me to pay. But I get it if you're a team in Pittsburgh's position where you just feel like we need to get something done here.

Yeah, I don't love it. But if they get. so they traded a second round to go get DK. If they get a third back for Pickens somehow or like, then I can start to sell myself like, okay, this is still a very expensive thing. It's an expensive player I would not have paid that much money for, but to basically get a 125% version of what Pickens was and the offense only worked when Pickens was having his good games.

It's almost, it's a little bit similar to what we were talking about with Christian Watson and the Packers where it's like, theoretically see the, D.K would have been like a 120% version of Watson and on the field all the time. That's kind of what the Steelers have ended up doing with Pickens potentially, assuming that this is a move for them to be able to go move him and get somebody else the receiver. And I also think DK has more juice than George Pickens does. I mean, it's just like purely does. He runs away from people. Watson's all juice and nothing else.

Yeah. Metcalfe runs away from people in a way that George Pickens does not. It's the same route tree, but the way they get there and like how they executed is a little different. It's so true because George Pickens is like a contested catch. Like that's what he does. D.K., that's not what he does. So even though the packaging, if you were to stand next to each other, looks comparable, like their adjacent players, the style that they play with and how they get it done is very,

very different. But I still think that there's enough redundancy. And we have Pickens heading into the final year of his deal. They just paid D.K. If I were a team that was truly desperate at receiver, I would at least give the Steelers a call to kick the tires on what a George Pickens contract might ultimately look like. You got to come to terms with all the other stuff that comes with the George Pickens' experience, but again, if there's a level of desperation, maybe it's worth picking up the phone.

One of the other just, I can't believe this moments that unfolded over the last day or so, is Laramie Tunsell getting traded to Washington in a fascinating deal. Houston gets a second and a fourth, but not till 2026, and they get a third round picking some pocket change in 2025. The Texan save, I think, like $10 to $12 million against the cap. They didn't have a lot of cap space to begin with, but they just took on $16 million of Christian Kirk's deal in 2025. So my issue here with Houston is, I'm just not sure how this tracks with everything

else you've done over the last year or so. You look at the Daniel Hunter contract specifically. It's a two-year deal. It's almost fully guaranteed for a 30-something pass rusher. This felt like a team, or the Diggs trade, right? Like you're trading multiple picks for one year of Stefan Diggs. It felt like there was very real urgency to win now with where the Texans were. Now you're potentially heading into the offseason with the 25th pick with the whole left tackle

if you want to keep Titus Howard at Guard and Blake Fisher or right tackle. So that squaring that with all the aggressiveness and all of the win now moves that they've been making with this is just hard for me to do. I just don't know what to take from this and what message to take from it if I'm the Texan specifically as part of this trade. I don't love it for a number of reasons. Like, if they've really wanted to cope and sell themselves like, okay, Tunsell's getting a little bit older, he's coming off the worst year. We've probably ever seen him play as a pro. Fine, I get it. But also, nobody on that line probably played their best ball last year.

And you've already made the switch at coaching change. So you would assume he can probably play at a better level again. And part of last year's issue was he was false starting a million times, which I would imagine if the team is more put together is probably not going to happen again. And then you already have some of these shuffling along the offensive line that was already not good. And to take away the left tackle out of it, it just doesn't make sense, especially at this stage in the calendar where there's not other left tackles that they can go sign. And they're far enough down in the draft board where it's not like you're going to walk in

and just get a Will Campbell. So I'm struggling to find how they're. going to fix the left tackle situation unless for whatever reason they are fully course correcting from last year where they were like, all in, oh shit, it didn't work. Okay, all out. Let's play for the future, which that just doesn't even seem like very stable decision making. You're taking a step back almost no matter what happens. Like even if you can somehow lay in the plane here and find a left tackle at 25, he's going to be

worse than Larry Me Tunsell in 2025. And I think that what you mentioned about all these guys look like the worst versions of themselves within that offense, they fired the offense coordinator. They fired the offensive line coach. This was a systemic issue that I think touched every single guy, even a guy of Laramie tonsils caliber. So this to me feels like a buy low move from Washington and a creative move from Washington. Because if you look at the amount of cap space they had and some of their needs, they were

never going to be able to use all that cap space on the right players in free agency. So trading a couple picks, you know, not nothing, but future picks, 2026 picks, no first round picks to go get a tackle of Tunsell's caliber and now potentially being able to move Brandon Coleman either to guard or to right tackle and really solidify that offensive line with a guy who has been an elite player at his best. Even if he's on the downside of his career, even if he ends up being 80% of what he was in like 2023, that's still a very good left tackle, especially when you consider guys like Dan Morgan, getting $21 million a year.

I like this as a move for Washington to try to pounce on what was a down year from the Houston offense overall. For Houston, it just makes less sense to me from a football level. Maybe there's some stuff happening beyond that that we don't really know about, but from purely what we're putting on the field,

the product we're trying to create this season, I think Washington got a lot better and I think that Houston got markedly worse. Yeah, and Washington got a lot better with, again, what I just said about Houston. I don't know what they're going to do. Washington didn't have another. option. Like if they weren't going to be the Danmore team and didn't want to, you know, do all that,

they're picking too low in the draft to go do anything. And I, you know, I think when we did, uh, had Fran on during our live show, I was like, if Washington's idea was okay at left tackle, maybe we could use some of these picks and trade up in the draft and go get Armand Membu or, or whoever it would be, uh, Kelvin Banks. I think they're thinking was, well, if we're going to trade the picks, let's just go get a guy we know is good. And so that, that's why it makes more sense to me. The last one here, this obviously rolled out over the weekend, but probably my favorite moment just when it comes to, oh, God, I love that. Like, that's the first reaction to it.

Devante Adams heading to the Rams. Two years, 46 million, 26 million guaranteed. Good on the Rams are getting ahead of this. Obviously, Devante Adams was released so they could start negotiating with him the moment that that happened. By all accounts, Sean McVeigh was on the horn to Adams in Japan over the last few days. Respect to Devante Adams' travel choices as somebody who took an offseason. to Japan last year. But on every single level, this makes sense to me.

If you think about the skill set within this Rams offense, if you think about what they needed with having Tutu Atwell and Pook could be your two guys, if you think about the window for this team with Matthew Stafford and just what was missing in that receiving group overall, it is hard not to love what Devante Adams, even at this stage of his career, potentially brings to what the Rams want to be on offense. I'm so bought in on it, man. Like if he can even just be what O'Dell was when he was there during that 2021 season. And I think Adams clearly has still more left in the tank than O'Dell had at the time.

I think if he can just be that- He was good down the stretch last year, man. He was legitimately good down the stretch last year. He is a really, he's still a good player. He's not, sometimes we do this thing where like a player used to be elite and he takes a step back from that. And we kind of just stopped talking about them in a certain light. And it's like, hey, man, he's still like a Pro Bowl caliber receiver. And so I think for them to get that.

that even if he takes a half step down from that is still better than what they had from Odell that year. And we saw how transformative O'Dell Beckham was for that team. And so I think if he can be a little bit more of that, they can unlock their dropback game a little bit more again. Because I think we saw the last year, maybe two years, the Rams actually went back to being more of an under center, run the hell out of the ball, duo type of play action team. I think there's a chance that bringing in Adams, he can still do all that stuff because he is willing to block and stuff. But it does allow you to be a little bit more of a dropback team in certain scenarios on third down than you were when that player was like DeMarcus Robinson. And DeMarcus Robinson is great as a like a wide receiver three, four rotational type.

It's a little bit different when Devante Adams is out there. You've a real ex-receiver now. A real ex-receiver that you can play on the line of scrimmage that allows your offense to be unlocked in the way that O'Dell could when he was rolling for them. I think there are two areas here that jump out to me beyond just alignment and roles. him, Devante and space, when he has a lot of space to work with to the sideline, some of the slot fade stuff that he's able to do. I love him in that role. That's where he's best as a vertical player is when you give him a little bit of space to work with,

especially at the stage of his career. This Rams offense, all those cut splits, even if he is your ex-receiver, he's your ex-receiver with more space than almost any other offense in the NFL. So I really do like that. And I also just feel like this is a team that did not have a red zone weapon. last year. Like it was DeMarcus Robinson for really the last two years. Like the idea that what you can do with Devante is like,

I don't really support a lot of fades in the end and like in the fine yard on the five yard line. Devante is the guy for whom I would support a fade on the five yard line. And that's just not the skill set that they've had within this offense. And so being able to tap into somebody like that as the field really starts to compress, I totally understand the vision for how he fits with all the other pieces that they have. There are exceptions to rules, and Devante Adams, as the goal line fade guy, is an exception to the rule. You don't throw the goal line fades because nobody else does it like Devante Adams.

You learn the wrong lessons from watching him, but he is absolutely the type of guy that they needed for that. And I also understand how Tutu fits into this vision, where the one thing that you need with Devante and Pukunakua is you need somebody to stretch the field. You just need to drop speed into the equation. They paid a premium to do it, but they know. him. They want him to work. So I get how these pieces are all supposed to fit together. I would tell you guys, please go check out the conversation we have with Jordan Roderick in real time during the stream about this.

She has a great job covering the Rams for us. It's early in the stream. Hopefully we'll have some timestamps in the YouTube video to point you guys in the right direction. But if you want some additional context on those moves, Jordan is going to give it to you in a way. We cannot, based on how well she understands that team. team and they're thinking. All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break. Let's do some of the bigger money moves over the last day or so, some of the teams that were

willing to throw some cash around. The New England Patriots at the top of that list. New England had a lot of money to burn, and they were not shy about using it on day one. Four years, $104 million for Milton Williams. 26 million dollars a year for Milton Williams. three years $60 million, $34.5 for Carlton Davis. Three years, $38 million for Robert Spillane. Three years, $44 million with 26 guaranteed for Harold Landry. We knew the Patriots would not be shy, and they proved us right very early on in day one, a free agency. Some of it before day one, a free agency in the case of the Harold Landry move.

I like most of these. So the Milton Williams number is big, right? but they had $120 million in cap space to spend. Like they weren't going to be able to spend it all. It's fine to go spend three extra million dollars a year than anyone else was going to be willing to get a player like that in the building, especially because their entire interior line has kind of been depleted this offseason, and we still don't know what's going to go on with Christian Barr more long terms. Like that move just made so much sense to me.

They signed my guy Carlton Davis, which is great, a hammerhead linebacker and Robert Spillane. The only one I didn't love was Harold Landry, but there is at least. It's a lot for Harold Landry, who is coming off probably his worst season of his career. You can see he doesn't have the juice he used to have. But I can understand why Vrable wanted to go get a former Vrable guy just to help solidify the culture. Like, this is how we do it here, all that kind of stuff. So they're paying a little bit too much money to do that. But I understand given how much money they had why they felt that that was probably fine.

Yeah, the Harold Landry one is tough for me to get behind based on who he is at this point in his career, probably from a football level. but if you're willing to pay for culture certainty, you know, guys that you knew in Tennessee, I guess I can kind of understand that even if I don't think it's the best use of resources. The Milton Williams one for me, it's a ton of money for a guy who has been essentially a part-time player for a good chunk of his career. We talked about this in the defensive free agency preview. He's played 650 snaps this year in 22 games. So you're having to extrapolate that a little bit.

One position we thought the Patriots might chase in free agency, ultimately haven't gone that direction was left tackle. They didn't pay a left tackle, but plenty of teams were willing to today. Dan Moore and Jalen Moore, post-Roney Stanley signing, were probably the best left tackles on the board along with Cam Robinson. Both of those guys get paid in a range that would have been hard to anticipate, let's just say, earlier this season or earlier in their careers. Jalen Moore gets two years and 30 million with 21 million guaranteed to be the chief's left

tackle. Dan Moore gets four years, $82 million with $50 million guaranteed from the Tennessee Titans to be their left tackle. These are some healthy deals from guys who in J.L. Moore's case has never been a full-time starter. And in Dan Moore's case, was kind of an emergency full-time starter this season, ultimately rounded into form, but was somebody who had a lot of issues earlier in his career with Pittsburgh. I at least the Dan Moore one I can sell myself on for for Tennessee because it is a lot of money but this is just the going rate for competent left tackle play but it does get you to one you solve potentially the left tackle issue and now Latham can move back to the right side which is

what he played in college and I assume he will look more comfortable on that side so if they can if this is them basically paying to fix two positions at once I can sell myself on it this is totally fine. Jalen Moore is a little bit more confusing to me. Just because, again, we've never really seen him be a starter before for the long term. Obviously, it's hard to do that behind Trent Williams. But just like, I don't know, man. I felt with as many issues as the Niners had the past few years sorting out their offensive line. If he was really that good, you would have thought they would have tried him at right talk. You would have thought that maybe they would have tried him at one of the guard spots. And it just didn't seem like that ever happened.

The other thing is, I'm tired of it with the chiefs. Figure out left tackle, dude. Like, I'm done with this. I think they wanted Ronnie Stanley. I think that's what happened. And when they missed out on Ronnie Stanley, this is what they had to pivot to. I'm sure they did. But like, I'm, and I understand because they pixelate in the draft every year, it's hard to get one of the top 10 pedigree guys. Sometimes it's hard to trade with all the cap. I get it. But like, I am sick of the best quarterback I've ever seen. Not having a good left tackle. The best one he's had is like Donovan Smith for a year who was okay.

It's ridiculous. Eric Fisher was fine. He was solid at the end still. Yeah, like the last couple years. That's a good point. But still, Eric Fisher is the best. The Dan Moore or the Jalen Moore won. There's definitely some hope baked into that.

We just don't typically see guys with this profile signed in free agency end up working for teams. It reminds me a little bit of the Andre Dillard situation. It's not quite that just because Andrade Dodeby had seen play and he had essentially failed. Joe and Moore's just never been able to break into the starting lineup. The Dan Moore won, even if it's pricey, I can get behind it. I was pretty adamant about this in the stream, but this is the going rate for capable left tackles. And if you look at what Dan Moore was this year for the for the Steelers, by the end of the year, he was a workable left tackle.

And if you're going to try to sign those guys in free agency, you're going to have to pay a premium to do it. They just don't hit the market. It never happens. The reason that Dan Moore did after playing moderately well this season is because of his struggles early in his career, the Steelers went out. I keep trying to say Patriots. The Steelers went out and drafted two tackles very high. They drafted Broderick Jones.

They drafted Troy Fondinu. And because of that investment, now Dan Moore is expendable. But if you look at what he was for that team this year, he was a capable left tackle. So if this is the rate for a capable left tackle and it allows you to move J.C. Latham to right tackle, and now the rest of the offensive line starts to make a lot of sense, I think this is probably a move worth making if you are the Titans, even if you're having to pay a premium to do it. In free agency at this position, you are going to have to pay that premium. It's just understood that that's going to be it. And like you just said with like them having already

drafted his replacements and then he just happened to play well in a contract year, it is important with some of these free agents to remember why they are on the market. And some guys are just, like, this is why the Jalen Moore thing, and we'll talk about Aaron Banks later, it's a little bit scary to me that an offensive line that was not very good last year is willing to let these guys walk and don't even really have contingency plans in the Niners. But with the Steelers, it's like, okay, well, they've already drafted all the contingency plans. You don't really want to pay another guy when you've already drafted enough replacements. It just doesn't make sense for them.

So, like, it's just every now and then a guy just kind of falls through the cracks for just circumstantially. And for the Titans, it's been a boon. Curious how this affects the Patriots in the draft by not going and signing a left tackle and free agency. Maybe it's Cam Robinson, but if it's not, it feels like a left tackle at four feels more realistic for this team, whether that's on Membo, whether it's Will Campbell. They need to find one somewhere along the way, and they're obviously going to be in a position to draft one. The other draft ripple effects to me that are fascinating here, I think with the way that this is gone, with the Titans ending up spending on a left tackle, this feels like

it's pointing toward the Titans potentially taking Cam Warden with the first overall pick. That combined with the fact that most of the other multi-year solutions at quarterback that are young are off the board. I don't think they want a bridge. I don't think they want a Rogers or a Russ or even like a Daniel Jones. With them not being involved in the Darnold conversation or missing out on Darnold even if they were, I feel like the way that this is all gone, to me, points to the Titans just saying, why wouldn't we take the quarterback first?

The offensive line is solid enough. We fixed enough of it. They go out and get a receiver at some point along the way here. Just a stopgap guy in free agency. And they're going to drop a rookie quarterback in. We're going to start the timeline now. That feels like a very realistic possibility at this point. And then that has interesting ripple effects for the rest of the top five.

But I do think that this is a sign that the Titans might. be looking to just solve their quarterback issues in the draft and just make sure that they have a solution there. And it should be what they do. Like at this point, I have actually arrived there where especially now that Darnold's off the board, Fields is off the board. Your only other options are really Kirk or Rogers, like realistically. And you could sell me that both of those guys would be better year one than Cam Ward. But like to what end? The Titans aren't going to be a good team this year and you're not going to probably be a good team until 20, 26 or 7. And so at that point, I would rather take the swing on board. And truthfully, when we were having some of these conversations

about Tennessee, maybe a month ago, I hadn't watched and charted as much Cam Ward. I don't know if Cam Ward is like bona fide, well, first over all the way I thought about like Drake May, but I do think he is good enough that I could stomach it. Like, there's a lot there to like. And like, I think he's a very talented player. I think he's a better runner than people realize. Like, I could handle it if they took him for several. What this means for the Browns, if the Titans end up going quarterback at one is fascinating. They just traded for Kenny Pickett,

which I think speaks to the level of desperation happening in the Browns building about finding an answer to a quarterback. And if Cam Ward ends up going one, I'm really interested what it means for the Giants. Because then the Giants are in a veteran plus mid-round rookie sort of place. Does that mean that they're a Rust team? I just think that that sends the Giants down a path that really is beneficial for no one. And we'll see what happens with Rogers.

Those are kind of the next dominoes to fall, is whether Rogers ends up with the Giants. Does he end up with the Steelers? Like, what does that look like over the next couple of days here? Because I think that'll tell us a lot about what the top three in the draft, ultimately, it looks like and how it unfolds. We're going to get to a spot with the Giants where they signed Kirk for no money and then draft either like Riley Leonard or Jalen Milro in the third round. because they're the guys who are most adjacent with what Daewel has worked well with before,

where it was Jalen Hertz at Bama, Josh Allen with the bills, Daniel Jones that one year in New York. Those are the most analogous athletes to that. So they might just take the gamble and then be like, yeah, Kirk for one year, we'll see what happens. Justin Fields is the other quarterback domino we have not talked about yet. Goes to the Jets, $20 million a year. I think it's like $30 million or so guaranteed. I don't have it in front of me right now. There's a lot of information that has been thrown at us over the last seven hours.

hours or so. It makes sense to me. It feels expensive, but if you look at the way that quarterback market has been over the last few years, like, this is what you essentially have to pay if you want to give a multi-year deal to a guy who is your starter, right? Like, this is starting caliber money. This is bridge money in the modern NFL. And because he's young, now you have a little bit of a multi-year runway. I get it even if I have some doubts about how, like, the best case scenario and what this might look like for the Jets. This still feels like a bit of a stopgap band-aid, even if Justin Fields is a little bit younger. I think so too. Like the, I just don't think there is a best case scenario for Fields anymore. Like the one that we might have imagined three

years ago. Like that just doesn't exist. Fields realistically is a, you sign him to be quarterback 25 to 19 if things really go well for you. He can run. He can throw the ball down field. He took minor strides as a quick game passer last year, but he realistically is a bridge quarterback who, um, I think I like still a little bit more than other people. And I do think that this fit makes a lot of sense. But yeah, the money, 20 million sounds like a lot. But if Jimmy Garoppolo is going to make 11 million to be on the bench, this is like, whatever, man. This is fine. Yeah. And again, you avoid the Donald situation if it does work when you're the Jets. Now you have a second year, gives yourself a little bit more leeway, a little bit more flexibility. So it always tracked to me that feels,

the Jets might be a fields team if they just be based on the avenues they had to other quarterback options. Another big picture thing I wanted to talk about here. We talked about this on the live stream and I think it's worth bringing up here again. It's just what happened with the linebackers? All the linebackers essentially going back to their old teams. Ernest Jones back to Seattle on a $3 or $33 million deal. Jamie and Sherwood back to the Jets for three years, 45 or 30 guaranteed.

Nick Bolton back to the chiefs on essentially the exact same deal as Jamie and Sherwood signed. Zach Bond, three years 51 with 34 guaranteed to go back to the Eagles. And then Levanti David and Bobby Wagner both go back to their respective teams at linebacker. I feel like I have a sense of why this might be happening. But as you looked at the landing spots of these linebackers and everyone running back into the arms of their former teams, what was your reaction when you saw that? So outside of the Jets, these are all like playoff caliber teams that think they have good enough defenses and they want to run it back. Obviously, the buck's defense is bad, but David has been a captain for them for a long time.

And with linebacker being a position that, one, the college game just doesn't produce very well, because the college game looks nothing like the NFL in terms of what linebackers are asked to do. And then it's also a position that kind of takes some time for guys to ramp up typically. So I think what we've seen recently is if teams hit on a guy who is even a C plus B minus for them at the position, they're willing to pay for the certainty and the continuity of like, okay, this guy knows our defense, we know what to do with them, all this stuff, rather than going into the wilderness with linebackers. Because we've seen these teams before, you can kind of just get stuck there for a long time.

The Eagles were stuck there for a long time until they randomly hit on the bond thing, which like that's not, they weren't even trying to solve the problem. They just got lucky. And so I just think that that's why, and we even see the Eagles now, they're like, oh my God, we got one of these guys. we got to keep him, we got to pay him. And so I just think we're seeing that, like, once you get on somebody who is at least a functional starter for you, it's easier to just keep one of those guys and maybe take your,

you know, third round dart throws on some of these guys rather than betting on rookie starters at linebacker. This goes back a little bit to we're talking about why guys are hitting free agency. And I think one of the reasons is, well, you know, we just priced ourselves out of this player. Like he was young, he was cheap. Now that he's not going to be, can we really afford to bring. him back. Well, with the increase in the cap, it feels like teams had more financial wiggle room

than they thought they were going to. And so if you're a team like the Rams and you're looking at Alaric Jackson and you're thinking, all right, we could try to go cheap in the draft or if we can afford to bring him back and get a level of certainty, isn't that worth doing? We saw this with Alaric Jackson. We saw it with DJ Jones. We saw it with a bunch of guys where it's like, oh, we have the money. We know this guy. We know this works. Why don't we just bring him back? Because we're not priced out of it. There is no position where that makes more sense than linebacker for the exact reason that you said. If you're the Eagles with Bond, or if you're the Jets with Jamie and Sherwood, or if you're the chiefs with Nick Bolt, linebacker is an incredibly difficult position to scout,

and the hit rate on these guys is really hard to figure out because it's just such a jump. The development curve is so steep at that position. If you know this guy is functional within your defense, having a little bit more money to throw around. paying for certainty at this spot, to me, makes more sense than almost any other spot. And so watching this happen at linebackers specifically is not necessarily surprising, even if you compare it to some other positions. And I'm glad you say it's hard to scout. The best rookie linebacker last year was Edron Cooper.

He was like barely playing actual linebacker in college. He was blitzing all the time. He was blitzing all the time. He was like kind of playing the nickel almost. Like he was not a boxed linebacker. And so that's the thing. is like how we're, it's just finding a true stack linebacker in college football is very hard to find.

And so I get why teams, when they get one in the NFL, they're like, all right, I don't want to let them go. All right, before we move on, we're going to take one more quick break.

Let's get to some of the bigger signings from today. We're breaking this down into a couple categories. And this is really just a way to communicate our reaction to them in real time. Again, you can go listen to the live stream. This first category I'm calling, oh, that makes sense, right? see it come across the ticker and it's like, all right, that makes sense.

First one, Trevin Merig to the Panthers three years, 51 million. We thought the Panthers might be a Javon-Hollin team. I expected them to potentially sign it or spend it safety because they went cheap last year. It didn't work. And I think they learned some lessons for that. Instead of Holland, they are the team that ends up pang up for Merig, which to me totally tracks based on the money Carolina had to spend and what their experience had looked like with a bin of clearance guys last season.

Right. Last year they had like Xavier Woods, who was fine as a band-aid, but now they go and get to the top of the safety market with a guy like Merrick who fits what they want to do with a lot of the split safety stuff. So I really like Merrick for them. He's a better coverage player than they had beforehand. The run stuff, the tackling can be a little bit hit or miss,

but his coverage stuff is good. And so with them also locking down J.C. Horn, it's like, okay, you have some real pillars now in the secondary. that you know you're going to have for the next two, three years at least, that's a nice feeling for a defense that has had not very many good players the last couple years. Again, this is a team that is probably pretty far away. There are not that many second contract players worth paying in free agency.

Merrig is one of those guys. And another young piece, they missed out on Milton Williams. We thought that they were going to potentially be the Milton Williams team early in the day. Patriots were willing to out spend them. So as a consolation prize, they go out and get Bobby Brown formerly of the Rams, who's only 25 years old. So these sorts of second contract players,

we're trying to find a couple building blocks here in free agency because we still think we're a couple steps away, totally tracks for me if you're a team in the position that the Carolina Panthers are in. And didn't they also sign Pat Jones from the Vikings? So them just like getting one big swing in the secondary and then just throw an extra whatever darts they can at the front, it makes total sense to me because they still have now the flexibility

if they want to draft a guy in the first round with one of their top picks up front, they can still do that because they're only taking these other dart throws. So I kind of like what the approach they've taken here. I think that there's a chance that Dan Morgan just really likes the Brian Flores defense because he signed DJ Wanham last year. Oh, right. I think there's a chance that the Panthers are just like, I kind of like what those Minnesota guys do with their edge players.

These are the guys I want. The fact that they've done it twice in a row for these kind of like second third tier edge players It's just funny to me. A couple more that, again, just totally made sense in the moment, even though they had to pay up for both of these guys. The Colts going to get Cam Bynum and Charverius Ward, considering the state of their secondary. And the fact that Chris Bollard had pretty much openly said,

I kind of want to be a little bit more aggressive in free agency this year. Bynum to the Colts was one of my favorite fits when we were talking about defensive players last week because I think of how Luan Arumo wants to be on the back end, having somebody like Bynum who has had a ton of experience in one of those amorphous weird defenses totally attracts to me wanting a player like that. And again, young ascending piece. And Charvarius Ward is a, we're not doing this anymore at corner sort of move. We're like, we're not doing this anymore.

We're not rolling with these UDFAs and these seventh round picks and all this stuff. Like we're going to spend on one of these guys because I'm tired of these half measures. So watching the Colts spend this sort of money on the back end, I think really, really speaks to what they need on their defense with Luanarumo and the level of urgency that we can attribute to the 2025 Colts team. Yeah, both moves just like fit perfectly what they need. Can bind them. You get your safety that Lu Anirumo needs to do all the stuff and be the captain of

the defense. And he's coming from a blind Flores defense who did a lot of the nonsense that Anirumo likes to do on the back end. Yes. And then Charverius Ward like, man, you watch some of the Colts corners and it's like, okay, it's cool that this hyperathletic third round pick he has some flashes. is oh, Sam Womack is kind of like having a better game than I would have thought for this random guy who, you know, you just wouldn't think of at the back of a roster. But then when that's, that's all they're doing for three years and like, that's consistently the feeling.

Like the couple moments from like Jalen Jones and Sam Womack. Like you can't really build a house on that. Yes, they feel good for the moment. And then you realize you got to the end of the year and you're like, wait, I don't know if that's enough to like sustain you. We need a few more calories here. We need some more to keep us going. and Charvarius Ward is a full course meal in terms of getting good quality cornerback play. This one just rolled in.

It's very funny. Broncos quarterback Zach Wilson reached agreement on a one-year $6 million deal fully guaranteed with the Miami Dolphins. The idea of a Zach Wilson as to a contingency plan is just deeply funny to me. I don't know why. My first thought wasn't even that. My first thought was like the BYU kid ending up in Miami is like kind of funny to me for like that is also like there's just a lot of it that is this is interesting. I get it. Again, if you're the Jets and you're just like trying to take low cost dice rolls, you're trying to bet on your offensive infrastructure.

We'll see what happens with two over the next couple years. It makes sense to me. They're a team that probably needed to be a little bit more aggressive and ambitious with their backup quarterback plan than they have been in recent years. This prevents you from having to sign Hoop Huntley off the street in week four if Tua gets hurt. It's not a place they wanted to be again. So I totally get that. But we need to spend a ton of time on. It just came across the ticker in real time here.

A couple more signings that I think just made sense as we saw them. You called this one. You wanted this one. Josh Sweat goes to the Arizona Cardinals. Four years, 77 million, 41 million guaranteed. Makes all the sense in the world. Cardinals had a ton of money to spend. Cardinals had a need at edge rusher.

Josh Sweat played for an. Nick Rollis and Jonathan Gannon when he was in Philadelphia, I don't think there's a lot more to it. When you look at the rest of the edge group, what guys are getting paid and what Josh Swett still has in the tank, this totally tracks to me for Arizona. Yeah, just the reason I like that, obviously you can make the easy connection of, okay, well, he played under Jonathan Gannon and Philly. That all makes sense. The other part of it that makes sense to me is just if you're Jonathan Gannon, you're still

trying to rebuild the defense. They've spent a lot of resources on the offense. now I think it's Gannon's turn to get his guys on defense. You want some guys who play the right way. And Josh Sweat absolutely does. He's high energy. He plays the run really well. Like he doesn't really take snaps off.

He's just, it's the type of guy that you want to pay and kind of set an example of what a Cardinals defender should look like. And so I really love it for that reason. And then obviously just purely as a pass rusher, he's way better than anybody they had last year. So it's just from every angle, it just makes way too much sense for them.

I'm interested in the body type combinations that they can throw out there. Like having Josh sweat and then being able to bump Darius Robinson inside, having Baron Browning on the other side who they brought back. They're trying to build like this weird group of pass rushers that I actually can get behind because you have a bunch of different body types to throw at it. So I'd be curious to see if they're done. They probably need another interior piece if we're being honest. And wouldn't be surprised to see them potentially spend a corner.

You know, even with Sean Murphy Bunting was a low, risk signing last year. I'm sure they have high hopes for Max Melton still, but this is a team that still needs a bunch of talent on that side of the ball. So wouldn't be surprised if they were done even after the sweat move. Our team that's thrown a lot of money in bodies at their problems. The Chicago Bears go out and sign Drew Dolman three years, 42,000 28 guaranteed. It's a lot of money. If you look at it, in terms of AAV, it's the second highest center contract in the league right now. If you do it by percentage, it's actually fifth. It's

probably right in line with what the Lloyd Cushenberry deal looked like for the Titans last year. I think pretty analogous. Dolman's 26. Cushenberry is 25 when he signed that deal. We've talked about Dolman a lot. I think he's relatively limited just because he's a little bit undersized. But if you can drop him next to two guards and in Jonah Jackson's case, a bigger guard, it makes sense to me. And this is a team that was hell-bent on remaking the interior of their offensive line.

They had to spend a lot to do it. but I think the final product, even if you had to pay sticker price for it, is something that Bears fans could get excited about. Yeah, this is, it's expensive, everything they've done on the interior, but I think it'll be worth it. Like, I think making sure that Caleb Williams is going to be protected, not only in the pocket, but just like, they have a run game now. And we don't have to just have Caleb Williams drop back on second and 12 all the time. Like, I think that is another way that he's going to be protected. And I also think, you know, I've said this before on some other shows, the highest outside zone team in the NFL was the Falcons by a lot.

The second highest was the Lions with Ben Johnson. And I think that that is the exact system that Dalman obviously needs. It's the same system he's coming from. And so I think even from that angle, it really does make a lot of sense. I know we all like to think, oh, well, the Lions had Frank Ragnow. So, you know, yada, yada. But he's, Frank Ragnow can do anything. And so Dalman can at least fit into part of the things that he was doing here.

A couple more here. Punifour going to the Rams. This is a smaller one. But Jordan did such a great job. on the live stream and pointing to the fact that they might want a veteran kind of run-stopping presence to go along with the more penetrating centric defensive linemen that they drafted last year or over the last couple years with Kobe Turner and Braden Fisk. This makes total sense to me. You put a fire hydrant in the middle of your defense and you have these guys just

creating absolute chaos around him. I like what the Puna Ford skill set looks like combined with the other pieces on this Rams defensive line. Yeah, you've got the old grizzled vet now who just has like four of these young dogs just going crazy all around. It's honestly the perfect way to build a front. So I really like this move. They were another team that kind of like we've joked about with the Bengals sign anybody at nose tackle. And they did. They got one of the best ones on the market. And the Bengals again, I think we can throw them in this in here too. You know, they haven't done a lot of splashy stuff. I think they're probably some big moves to come for them. But signing BJ Hill, resigning BJ Hill to $11 million a year

deal. And then going out and getting T.J. Slayton from the Packers, seven and a half million on average over two years. This makes sense. You know, when they tried to build this room last year, then I went out and signed Sheldon Rankins and brought back BJ Hill, but they never really replaced DJ Reader's skill set within the defense. Rankin's barely played, but even if he did, and it was healthy for most of the year, I still think the run defense probably would have struggled. So going and getting a bigger body like Slayton, pairing him with B.J. Hill, there's just a lot more heft in the middle of the defense than there was last year. And Slayton is somebody that has some real interesting flashes. Like he's probably a limit. He's probably an early down player, but to get him for

seven and a half million dollars a year is still a young guy, there have been some moments from him over the last few seasons where I'm like, that guy's got something to him. And so this is a bet I would be willing to make on a guy that I do think he's actually pretty talented and fits what they need. Yeah, even if in an ideal world, Slayton is more of a rotational player for you, in the Bengals case, they're going from not having a nose tackle type to now having one, even if he has to play maybe more snaps than you like, a bigger role than you'd like. That is an upgrade. And they're really not paying that much to do it.

You're taking a swing on a young player. This was a good bet for them to make. One more team that I just, no big splashy signings, but signings that I think all made sense based on where they are. The Jags go out and get Patrick McCarrey for three years and 38 million 20 guaranteed. Robert Hainesi, three years 21,013 guaranteed. And then they signed Diami Brown to a one-year deal. and free agency.

McCarrie is somebody that's played a bunch of different positions. We'll see where he ends up settling for the Jags, but I assume it's going to be at one of the guard spots. And Hainesie was pushed out by Graham Barton last year, but he is somebody that played for Liam Cohen last year, smart player, veteran player. You just lost Mitch Morse. So having more of a stopgap at center,

these are modest moves along the offensive line, but we're talking about the connective tissue of a roster. That's what the Jags are getting here. with these two guys. So maybe not the sexiest moves in the world, but I think moves that do track based on where the Jaguars are right now. Yeah, McCarrie is plugging a hole on the interior, which is what they need. And then with Hainesie, he's going to be probably a below average center. He's going to get moved around a little bit, but I do think that there is value in paying for a guy who knows the system, especially and to come in and help, you know, assert that new system in a new location.

So I understand them wanting to pay for that. And then Diami Brown is just $10 million is, is fine. It seems to be the going rate for a wide receiver three who you think can do, fill a particular role. And so for them, it's, it's perfectly fun. I liked, we talked about this on the stream. I liked what Diami Brown did last year with the ball in his hands. I actually think he has more, he has more umph there than you might think based on his pre-draft profile where he was kind of like a vertical player coming out of North Carolina. And they threw him a lot of screens last year. He's not the biggest guy. He's not the fastest guy. He's not the most physical guy. But I think he has a good feel on those sorts of plays. And if you look at the

screen game for the bucks last year, we thought Godwin might be a fit for them. And so him being dropped in as like a clearance bin Chris Godwin and being used that way. I don't hate that. I actually think that does make sense when you look at what he brought to Washington's offense last year. And especially too, they let go. So he kind of fills two roles in a sense. They obviously trade Christian Kirk and then they let go Evan Ingram. Ingram was their underneath yak guy. Christian Kirk was a little bit more of their slot field stretcher. Diommy Brown is probably not as good as either of those guys at either role, but he is, he does allow you to fill both roles and then still give you flexibility in the draft and for the rest of free agency. So it's like, okay, this is like it

kind of, it's a nice little signing. Let's hit some of the ones that may be a little bit more surprising, signings that are not what we thought we were going to be getting heading into today. I'll kick this off. I did not anticipate Josh Palmer being a bill at the end of this process. Not because I didn't think the bills needed another receiver,

but I just thought that they would go for somebody who had more giddy up when you look at the rest of that room. And Josh Palmer is just not that guy. Like, he's a solid player. I thought he'd be somebody that we just need a body here

to run an offense. So like, the Titans go out and get a Josh Palmer. The lion's he would have made sense, right? like to do what Reynolds had done before. The Patriots, like some team like that, the bills paying for Josh Palmer when you look at the rest of their receiving core, that's just a little bit surprising to me. That is not the skill set I thought that they would be seeking out in the market, whether it was in the draft or free agency this spring. Yeah, it just feels a little bit like, listen, I love their run game.

It's very mean. It's very, they can do a lot of hold it different things. I like a lot of their receivers in a vacuum. Shakir is really good underneath. I still like what Keon Coleman can be. But you kind of end up at a point of diminishing returns if all of your best plays are within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Even if you're good at all of those things individually, if those are the only things

you can do, eventually you start to put a cap on yourself. So maybe they still can go pay for somebody who can stretch the field a little bit, or maybe they draft a guy in the second round, whatever it is. Those guys are typically a little bit easier to find later, but the signing just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Ryan Kelly, two years, $18 million, no word on the guarantees yet, to the Minnesota Vikings. I love that. I love that.

You've been trying to replace Gary Bradbury the entire spring. I have been doing that. I thought this was maybe going to be the Dolman team. Because again, one, you, Gary Bradbury is not a, like, he's not the worst center in the league, but he's not a player that you need to feel you should be tied to. And it only takes $2 million to cut him if they want to do that. They might just keep them around for depth, who knows. But it's not going to take very much to cut them.

So I think it made sense from that angle. And then this was probably their best path to upgrading the offensive line, right? Like your tackles are obviously situated. Guard, you maybe could have done something but was going to be hard with what was left in the pool unless they wanted to pay for Wolf fries or something. I would still be willing to pay for Will fries. of this team. Of course you would. I would not hate that.

Oh, I just think that they need more pieces. I think even with this, you still need more better answers of guard than the ones that you've had. I'd be replacing Ed Ingram if I had a chance to. I do agree with that. And they should replace that. Well, they already tried to, yeah,

replace Ed Ingram last year. So that experiment is done, I think, regardless. I do think, though, upgrading the center spot is going to have some sort of cascading effect on the guards a little bit,

even if it still shouldn't be Ingram next year. And the whole thought was you're adding more heft at that center spot. That's the, that's the entire point. A couple more of these here. Let's talk about the new, the Green Bay Packers approach to free agency today. even if we could talk about the quality of the deals and how smart they are, but just going this direction with their signings.

Aaron Banks, four years, $77 million to presumably come in and play guard for them. This may signal a move for Elton Jenkins to center. And then former Raiders slot corner, Nate Hobbs, four years, $48 million, only 16 of that guaranteed. But we talked about this on the stream. I can understand the banks thing, because you're moving. moving to Jenkins to center with Josh Myers hitting free agency. That makes sense. That's an easy set of moves to kind of forecast. What the Hobbs contract means for the rest of the pieces in the Green Bay secondary, I expected them to spend money at corner. I did not expect them to

spend money at a slot corner if that's how they see Nate Hobbs. So this one was surprising to me. They're confusing for different reasons, right? Like, Banks is too much money for a player that I just don't think it makes sense for. And the San Francisco offensive line quietly was not very good last year. And so for them to not retain a player, not have any contingency plan. And then for him to go sign somewhere else, that scares me a little bit. But with filling in where he needs to with this particular team, it's like, okay, he will obviously have a starting job and it's easy to see how he fits in.

Hobbs is on the other end where it's like, I can sell myself on why this would be a useful player for us. And with the low guarantees, it makes sense. but also like who is going to play where the best play we saw at a givon bullard was in the nickel he's probably not like so he's probably either going to get moved out but then if hobbs plays outside he hasn't done that in two years like it's just i don't know where he's supposed to play like it just it's confusing i'm sure we'll learn more about that i'll be very curious what brine goon coots what some of the packers writers end up saying about hobbs's role i just if you had listed

off 10 corners that the packers would have signed in free agency to a real deal Hobbs wouldn't have been one of the ten guys I would have said. It just wouldn't have been one of the first names out of my mouth. And signing a left guard, if that's where they think Banks is going to play, that also wouldn't have been up near the top of the list. I get it if you want to move Jenkins to center and you think that's your best option. But a couple of surprising moves for the Packers, not saying they won't work, but just not what I anticipated coming into this process.

Similar for you with Isaiah Rogers going to the Vikings. This is a team that had a ton of money to spend on its secondary. They may not be done spending on their secondary, but Isaiah Rogers for two years and 15 million with $8 million guaranteed, not the day one free agency move you expected from the Vikings on the back end of their defense. It's not. And I want to say that this is not, I don't think it's a bad signing. I actually think it's kind of good.

But with the Vikings going into this offseason, it was like, okay, Byron Murphy was making like mid-level cornerback money, maybe a little bit above that. And so they were obviously going to let him walk this offseason. So it was like, okay, are you going to go spend for a top tier corner? or are you going to go digging down a little bit more, believing that your system, if you play it the way that you have been with a lot of the zone stuff, a lot of throwing these crazy, crazy blitzes,

that maybe corner doesn't matter as much in our system. I was hoping selfishly that they would go pay for a Charverius Ward or Carlton Davis and play more man coverage because that's what I like at a Brian Flores. But they obviously went the over the way and said, all right, Isaiah Rogers, we've seen him play decent ball when he's had to play for the Eagles. He's played in his own defense before with the Colts.

Let's go dig in the bargain bin, see if we can get a starting level player out of this guy. And I kind of don't hate it. I think it's probably a good bet for a team like this to make, especially if they want to save that money for the Ryan Kelly's and stuff like that. Yeah. And I think that Rogers has been okay. Like when Preston to Duty, he's been okay.

They picked on him in a little bit at times last season when Slay got hurt in some of those stretches. But I think he is a capable player. And I can make, I can understand them, you know, wanting to maybe skimp a little bit in order to solidify areas like the offensive line that absolutely need a little bit of work. I think Jonathan Allen is visiting them later this week, so that one makes sense to me because they need help along the interior of the defensive line. So how the Vikings were going to use the pool of money they had was always something I was

going to be watching and to see them not spend it on corner and go other directions, probably pretty telling in terms of where their priorities lie. A couple more here, Javon Kinlaw to Washington for three years and $45 million with $30 million guaranteed. This one is, it's hard to do. track for me. Obviously, Adam Peters was a part of the team that drafted Javon Kinlaw, but there is nothing about what we've seen from him over the last couple years that would lead me to believe he's a player that justifies this sort of deal. It feels like there's a lot of projection and hope

baked into this price tag. There's a little bit of Adam Peters being like, surely I wasn't wrong about this player. We're going to get him in over here. And Dan Quinn being like, oh yeah, I can fix that. It's a little bit of hubris from both guys, I think. And after the way last year went, I totally understand why they would have that kind of hubris, but it does feel like a lot of money for a guy that we haven't seen that much play out of. And I do think he had moments with the Jets where you could see it. And at the end of his San Francisco tenure, where you could see it, obviously earlier in his career, he had some of the injury stuff, but you're still paying a lot for not a very strong or full sample of the player they're hoping they can get. So he's,

he did end up playing 17 games last year. Yeah. So he had 30 pressures last year on about 400 past rush snaps. It's not great. And when you watched that team last year with the Jets, it's like one of the biggest things they needed was more help on the interior of the defensive line. It's kind of similar to what you're saying about the Niners. If a team that needed help along the interior of the defensive line, let this guy go. And he played 17 games for them last year, paying a premium to get him onto your team.

Not sure I love that. So this feels like, hubris is probably the right way to say it when it comes to why the Washington brass thought this was going to work. Last one here, this is just two, but for one team. As I've gotten to sober up a little bit, while spending a little bit more time marinating with these, I'm not sure I love the bear's defensive line moves.

Diolo Dengbo for $16 million a year is better than 20, which is the rumors that that's what he might be getting, still has not been that productive of a player. I know he's a second contract guy. He's young. Hopefully you're banking in a little bit of development. I think that's still pretty rich. They've really missed out on some of these guys before.

If you think about the DeMarcus Walker contract, et cetera. So I'm not sure I love that one. The one that is even more skeptical about. Grady Jarrett, three years, $44 million with $29 million guaranteed. He's now a full year removed from the ACL. So maybe you can talk yourself into that. But for a player on the wrong side of 30 that just got released to get that sort of money on day one of free agency, that one's a little bit surprising to me.

I think both of those are a little bit rich for my blood, even if I do like the offensive line moves that this group made. They're paying a lot for, I don't even know how to how I want to frame it. But like with in, in Dio Ode Inbo's case, they are paying a little bit extra money to just get the guys that Dennis Allen likes. He likes the 6-4 long 280 pounds, the Marcus Davenports, the Cam Jordans, all those guys. Like, that is just the style of player he likes. And Diio absolutely fits into that tier of player. And so maybe they just, even though sweat is, if you were just ranking players purely on quality, a better player.

And for only three million more a year, sweat would have, I would pay that for sweat over the deal that they just made. But I understand stylistically why they were willing to pay for that. Grady Jared is a little bit more confusing. you kind of have to sell yourself on the idea that even though he's faded the last two years and he was the only pillar for a bad defense that it's actually going to be fine and he'll play better, which that to me is hard to sell yourself on. The only positive spin is it is a pretty young interior and so maybe they are just really want a more of a veteran presence in there.

I don't know if paying the amount of money they're paying to get that is worth it, but I do at least understand why maybe that could be front of mind for them. Yeah, that's a tough sell. I understand what you're trying to do there. I get, I always, that to me is a fun. I always like that exercise. Well, what are they thinking? Like, why would they want to do this?

I like exploring things from that perspective, but I think that you're talking yourself, you're twisting yourself into a little of a pretzel there, if that's your reasoning for giving Grady Jared that sort of money. We'll see what the Bears end up doing. Now we have 10, you know, you've filled two pretty big needs now on the defensive line and three on the offensive line. This gives you flexibility.

to kind of go wherever you want with that pick, I still feel like I'd want to bring in reinforcements on offensive or defensive lines. I don't think that the O'Dangbo contract prevents you from drafting an edge rusher with the 10th overall pick, and I don't think that what they did along the interior prevents you from drafting an offensive lineman with the 10th overall pick. We talked about this with Sandow on the stream. It's the last I'll talk about the Bears, I promise for like three days. When they didn't make any moves last year and they rolled the same offensive line, I think people are going to look back on that,

and there's going to be a little bit of a revisionist history for why it happened. You had Brexon Jones with two years left on his deal at left tackle. He had played well enough for you to keep seeing what you had in him. So the idea of drafting Olo Foshano with the 10th overall pick, when you still wanted to see what you had in a young left tackle with two years left on his deal, that didn't make any sense to me. And even on the interior, you had Tevin Jenkins, who played really good football in stretches in 2023 when he was on the field.

And you had already signed Nate Davis to a sizable free agent contract to play right guard for you. Center is the only position where the Coleman Shelton thing probably wasn't enough urgency. They needed to be a little bit more aggressive by how they handled that. All the other spots, I understand how they rolled into the season with that. Things have obviously changed. Temon Jenkins is a free agent now. Braxton Jones has one year left on his deal.

So if you wanted to draft a tackle now, presumably because you weren't willing to commit to Braxton in the long term, I could understand that. And Nate Davis is off the roster. So people are going to look at this and think it's a reaction to how last year went. I think there's some truth to that. but I also just think that the circumstances and how you want to build the line now is very different than how it felt a year ago. So there's a little bit of Ben Johnson influence here. There's a little bit of urgency here.

But I also feel like we're operating under very different conditions than we were at this time last year for Ryan Poles. And those bets that they were trying to make last year kind of made sense because you didn't necessarily know what you were going to be on offense or what you wanted to be on offense. You had a new quarterback. You were changing coordinators. It was just like you have no idea. Now that you bring in an offensive head coach who very obviously knows the value of having a beefed up offensive line, like you said, the math just changes, the circumstances changes of who and why you would pay guys. Before we get out of here, very quickly, your favorite signing a free agency so far as what? How is it not Carlton Davis?

I mean, how is it not? I've even said any time I brought up the Patriots, I just want another long, mean corner. with Christian Gonzalez. And I wanted it to be Hunter in the draft. And now that it's not going to be Hunter in the draft, most likely, now that we get Carlton Davis, it's just perfect. They have two, some teams have two good corners, like with the Jets a couple years ago when it was Sauce Gardner and DJ Reed. That was one of the best cornerback pairings in the league. DJ Reed is not like a true number one corner. He's a good number two. Carlton Davis is a serious number one corner. They've got two of them, man. Like, I just don't even know the last time we've seen it do. Like,

I'm just super excited about how this is going to look. It's a really fun pairing, and they paid a lot for him, but Carlton Davis, when he's on the field, is capable of playing at a high level. He misses some time, and that's something you're going to have to come to terms with, and he's also getting a little bit older. So there's absolutely some risk there,

but this is a team that had money to spend. You mentioned DJ Reed. Might as well hit a couple of these other cornerback signings that were big today. DJ Reed going to the Lions, not a pairing I expected to have on the day one of free agency. I thought the Lions might go a little bit cheaper at corner. They drafted Dennis Rankstraw on the second round.

It was that going to be a spot where they were going to rely on their succession plans? The answer is no. They're going to use some of those picks as depth. They spend big on DJ Reed, who I think is a really good player, not necessarily surprising. And then the other one, Paul Sinadipo, three years, $35 million to go to the Giants. We looked at him, again, a lot of these corners, Carlton Davis, DJ Reach, our various ward. These are third contract players, especially at that position where the age cliff comes quickly. There's some risk there.

Paul Sin Adibo is one of the younger corners of very. available in free agency. I expected a team to make a run at him, you know, that was maybe a little bit earlier in their timeline that wanted a multi-year option, tried to catch a guy that was hitting his prime. But that is a pretty hefty price for Paul Sin Adiba, who has shown some flashes, but it has been up and down, I think, to say the least. It has been. But with the Giants, I kind of get them being like, man, our cornerback play was so bad last year. We'll pay anybody to come and make sure that they can at least be solid for us. And so from that angle, I think it makes sense. And I think schematically, he's a good fit for them being more of his own guy, good with his eyes, all that stuff.

DJ Reed to the Lions, you know, I said this on the live show. This to me speaks to them thinking that Terry and Arnold can step up into the number one rule next year. Because I just said DJ Reed is a good player. He's more of a number two, not a true number one. It's interesting to me that they were willing to pay only a little bit less to take DJ Reed, whereas like Carlton, Davis would not have cost them that much more money to keep around, and you know that he's a real number one. So this to me speaks to, they're going to try and see if Terry and Arnold is really the guy, which I think is an interesting experiment. And I also think, again, DJ reads availability compared to Carlton Davis might have factored into that equation. A little bit of news talking about

the Giants. Darius Slayton back to the Giants. You've got to be kidding. Three years, $36 million. What an unsatisfying end to all of this. This is the least interesting soap opera of all time Between an organization and a player Just get him the fuck out of there Put him on a more fun offense Where he can just run fast I cannot believe that this is how this all ended

I should have known I'm so upset that I hawked him to like eight different teams But how many times have the Giants tried to kill Darius Slayton And they can't I can't believe he went back there I can't believe after all of this That he decided to go back there it's three years, $36 million.

Maybe he didn't have as robust of a market as he might have wanted, but I have to imagine he could have gotten something similar to that to go somewhere else. Tutu Atwell got $10 million a year. I just don't get it, man. It doesn't make any sense to me. The only thing I can imagine is they fought with him for a while of trying to get him on and off the field and trying to get these other guys drafting Jalen hired or whatever. He might have just looked at the Deptart and been like, well, outside of Malik neighbors,

I'm pretty confident I'm better than all. these guys. I'll get my, you know, 90 targets this year and I'll be good. So I don't know if that's what I would have done, but at least I can understand it from that angle. My last one here that I wanted to hit, my favorite one of the day. And it's funny because I feel like a hypocrite because I'd said that he was one of the landmines I'd be looking out for heading into free agency. But the fit here is just something that I can get really excited about. Tolano Ophanga going to the Broncos is like exactly the type of player I want on that Broncos defense. Like you look at the back end of their defense and obviously Patrick Chattain is his own thing.

But at safety specifically and even a linebacker in the spine of the defense, it was solid, reliable pieces. I wanted just a guy who was going to stir shit up, just somebody that you could drop in and just be a merchant of chaos in the middle of that defense. Who better than this guy to be exactly that skill set? And we mentioned this on the live stream. Fance Joseph has experience with these types of guys. He had Buda Baker in Arizona.

So I like this a lot. There's obviously significant downside because of availability, his injury history, but it's only 20 million guaranteed. And in the chance that this works out, I just love imagining him in that defense with all of the guys that they already have. So I am full speed ahead behind this one. I like it. A lot of the, it's funny too, because now that I'm looking at it,

a lot of the moves they've made since Sean Payton has been, in there in terms of they don't spend a ton on defense, but they usually sign like one guy a year. They're all assholes, like in terms of the way they play. Like DJ Jones just being mean up front, John Franklin Myers, Zach Allen, like these, these guys. Tala Noah Hufanga is exactly that from the safety position. Like he is just a guy where you're going to strap a bomb to his back. You're going to say, go run it that guy. Go find the football.

And he's going to make problems for the offense. So I really like his fit there. They needed a little bit more pop. from the spine of the defense, from the middle of it. And for him to, he's, you know, maybe brings that a little bit to his own detriment at times. But it's right. It's much needed. It's much needed in this defense.

I mean, we talk about, you know, the, the, the, Bucks bringing back their guys and how that was some of our favorite moves of free agency. The Broncos getting DJ Jones back and now dropping who Fong on to this thing. They probably need another linebacker after losing Cody Barton. But it's pretty easy to get excited about what Denver has on defense. We'll see what year two of this offense looks like. You know, they probably need that Joker tight end position. I think it's a little bit more juice at running back would be fun, but pretty easy to get excited about what Denver has done so far in the process.

All right. That's all. I'm sure there's more stuff I'm not looking at right now. It's happening on Twitter. We will hit all that stuff tomorrow. We're doing another live stream Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, this week. 4 p.m. Eastern on the athletic football show. YouTube channel. You guys can join us for all of that.

Mercifully, the live streams over the next three days will be what shows up in the podcast feed. But right now, we are seven hours. Seven and a half hours into talking. The fact that I was able to even able to make it through this is an absolute miracle. This is the most I've ever talked in a single day in my entire life. So for those of you guys who checked out the live stream and this, your disgusting sickos. I don't know how or why you would do that, but thank you anyway. If you want some more context around some of this stuff, please go look at the live stream. We had a great time doing it.

Sincerely appreciate everyone who joined us for that. We'll probably have a couple of our athletic writers on over the next couple days to provide some context on some of these signings now that we have an idea of where this money has gone. But until then, sincerely appreciate you guys hanging out with us all day today. We'll be back doing more of it tomorrow. Talk to you then.