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Bill Barnwell, ESPN Staff Writer
If you want a reminder of how the NFL free agent market can help teams win a Super Bowl, just look at the champs. The Chiefs started four free agent acquisitions on offense, including both tackles (Donovan Smith and Jawaan Taylor) and two of their three top wideouts (Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Justin Watson). Guard Joe Thuney, who played at an All-Pro level during the season, would have been a fifth if not for a pectoral injury.
On defense, the standout was safety Justin Reid, who ably replaced another former free agent addition in Tyrann Mathieu. Mike Edwards lined up next to him and played virtually every snap. Down the lineup, players such as Mike Pennel and Drue Tranquill made a difference in the front seven. No, Kansas City couldn’t have done it without Patrick Mahomes, but the star quarterback got a lot of help from the players general manager Brett Veach & Co. added in free agency.
Free agency can be a double-edged sword. When I used to grade individual signings, my average report came in somewhere in the C to C-plus range because most free agent signings don’t live up to expectations. Competing with other teams on the open market can lead organizations to make mistakes. Not grasping the market and being thoughtful about what’s available can lead to decisions that look foolish a year later.
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Take the Panthers signing running back Miles Sanders to a four-year, $25.4 million deal a year ago. We couldn’t have known his performance would entirely crater outside of Philadelphia, but it was inevitable that he would lose efficiency without Jalen Hurts and a top-three offensive line. Looking at contracts across the league also made it clear there were going to be running backs hitting the market as cap casualties over the spring and summer. Those backs weren’t great, either, but at least they didn’t tie up $11 million in guarantees over two years. Smart organizations read the market. Foolish ones react.
What does the 2024 market actually look like, though? I went position by position establishing what free agency might look like around the league on a tier-by-tier basis. For each spot in the lineup, you’ll get to see how many players at each level are actually going to come available this offseason, both as unrestricted free agents and potential cap-related releases. I’ll also hit which teams should expect to be in the market from spot to spot and how much those players should expect to land on their next deals. What teams pay, after all, can almost matter as much as who they sign.
I did this exercise in four separate pieces over two weeks, but I’ve included every position below and updated them since the franchise tag deadline and pre-free agency cuts:
Jump to a position:
QB | RB | WR | TE | OL
Edge | DT | LB | DB
