Welcome to our first-ever NFL Trade Rumors Free Agency Live Blog. In this space, we’ll be providing live reactions and analysis to all the free agency action that’ll start coming fast and furious once the negotiating period opens at noon Eastern today.
As a quick reminder, teams can officially start negotiating with players and agents after noon, though there have been plenty of conversations and legwork done already. Some of these deals didn’t just happen in five minutes.
All signings and trades must wait until the start of the new league year on Wednesday at 4 PM Eastern to become official however — and usually there’s at least one deal a year that falls through so this is an important distinction.
Plenty of big moves have already been agreed to this weekend, and there’s a recap of them below as well. Keep checking back here for updates throughout the day as free agency gets underway!
2024 NFL Free Agency Live Blog
Raiders Signed QB Gardner Minshew To Two-Year Deal, $15M Guaranteed
This deal was initially billed as competition for 2023 fourth-rounder Aidan O’Connell. But the contract value Las Vegas gave Minshew suggests he should be the heavy, heavy favorite to win any competition. This is low-end starter money, and it shows the Raiders are covering their bases.
Without many other options in free agency or the trade market — Justin Fields doesn’t seem like a serious consideration — the draft is the only other pool for the Raiders to pull from. Las Vegas is picking No. 13 and would need to give up a ton to trade up for a top prospect, so this move likely suggests they’re not going to go in that direction. Minshew won’t stop them from drafting a rookie at some point, perhaps more likely on Day 2, and he’ll provide insurance until that player is up to speed and ready to play.
Vikings Redirect Savings From Cousins To Defense
The Vikings were busy today even while losing Cousins to the Falcons. Minnesota made three notable signings on defense, including for OLB Jonathan Greenard, OLB Andrew Van Ginkel and LB Blake Cashman. There’s more on Greenard further down, and his deal is the biggest of the three.
Van Ginkel got a two-year, $20 million deal to reunite with DC Brian Flores. He’s an underrated player who could easily put up similar production to Greenard for half the price, and he’s a terrific fit with Flores who knows how to use his ability to play both off the ball and on the edge. He’ll start or at least be a major leader in the rotation.
Cashman signed for three years and $25 million, which is a strong deal for a linebacker in this market. It helps that the Vikings had a huge hole at the position and a big need. Cashman had a breakout season with over 100 tackles, nine tackles for loss, two sacks, a pick, a fumble recovery and five pass deflections. Staying healthy was a major challenge earlier in his career, though.
Overall, it’s clear the Vikings are going to try to get better on defense, in part to compensate for a potential step back on the other side of the ball due to quarterback instability, and in part because that’s been the team’s biggest weakness for a couple years now. It’s also worth noting that while the Vikings don’t have a huge of cap flexibility this year, saddled with $28 million in dead money for Cousins’ voided deal, the books open up tremendously next year. That gives the Vikings some flexibility if they can hit on a low-cost quarterback this offseason.
Packers Sign S Xavier McKinney To Four-Year, $68M Contract
After a year of austerity to deal with the dead money from trading QB Aaron Rodgers, Packers GM Brian Gutekunst is back to making big swings. In addition to landing RB Josh Jacobs, the Packers have bolstered their biggest weakness by winning a bidding war for McKinney against other teams, the Eagles included.
Safety was just a massive void for the Packers and an area where Gutekunst likely needs to make multiple transactions. But landing McKinney is a good start. He’s still only 24 years old and was a team captain with the Giants. He’s played in different schemes and can do a lot, including some things the Giants didn’t necessarily ask him to do the past couple of seasons. The Packers paid a premium to get McKinney, putting him inside the top five at the position, but he’s the type of player who has better odds of paying off at that price in free agency.
Interior OL Market Keeps Blowing Up
Earlier today, we noted the growing market for interior offensive linemen after the Eagles gave G Landon Dickerson an extension with one year remaining on his rookie contract that reset the market for guards, up to $21 million annually. This was after the Rams gave G Kevin Dotson a deal worth $16 million a year last week with $24 million in guarantees.
Well it turns out the Rams weren’t done, dipping back into the market for interior offensive linemen to sign Lions G Jonah Jackson to a three-year, $51 million deal ($17 million per year). This is despite using their first pick last year on G Steve Avila. He’ll move to center, and all of a sudden the cutting-edge Rams are one of the teams at the forefront of sinking significant resources into the interior of the offensive line when it hasn’t been viewed as a premium position for a while.
There’s more. The Giants signed G Jon Runyan to a three-year, $30 million deal, which at this point is just average starting money for the position. Then the Panthers dropped a big bag of money on Dolphins G Robert Hunt, signing him for five years, $100 million and a staggering $63 million in guarantees. Carolina was desperate to reinforce the protection for QB Bryce Young, but Hunt was going to get big money from some team regardless at the rate the market is going.
Patriots OL Michael Onwenu still remains unsigned, but judging by what has happened in free agency so far his deal is easily going to be north of $20 million, especially because he also has the flexibility to play tackle.
This type of growth goes beyond just natural inflation from the salary cap growing to $255 million. Teams say what they value by where they put their money, and with the rise in defensive tackle salaries last year and this year, teams are prioritizing paying the guys responsible for stopping them.
Packers Signing RB Josh Jacobs, Cutting RB Aaron Jones
Green Bay had been in talks with Jones, who has been one of the team’s most important players on offense for years, about a pay cut from his scheduled $12 million compensation. While Jones was productive when he was on the field last year, he missed significant time with a hamstring injury and almost no team would be willing to pay that much for a 29-year-old running back. Still, the Packers and Jones had been in tough situations like this before and always managed to work something out.
This time was different for whatever reason. The canary in the coal mine was the report that Green Bay was signing Jacobs away from the Raiders. Contract details weren’t immediately available but the deal the Eagles gave RB Saquon Barkley is likely a good barometer. Jacobs has a history as a bellcow back too, so the Packers weren’t signing him to a major deal for him not to have a major role. Sure enough, the other shoe dropped.
Green Bay has regularly emphasized the running back position more than other teams, either through the draft or with their investment in Jones when other teams would have moved on several years ago. So in hindsight, going after a big fish like Jacobs was predictable considering it’s a weak draft year for the position and the 2024 outlook for the Packers backfield between a 29-year-old Jones and pending FA RB AJ Dillon.
We’ll see how it shakes out. Big-money deals for free agent running backs have not been great investments and Jacobs has a lot of tread on his tires. However, Green Bay’s offense is dramatically better than the Raiders, and Jacobs led the league in rushing just two years ago.
Eagles Sign RB Saquon Barkley For Three Years, $37.75M
It’s been a tough few years for the running back position, and the truth is the position is just never going to be as important as it used to be. But there’s a sliver of sunshine on the horizon. Last year the Colts signed RB Jonathan Taylor to a legitimate, market-rate extension at $14 million a year with $26 million guaranteed.
That’s now officially a trend with Philadelphia’s deal for Barkley. The average annual salary is a tick lower than Taylor, but the guarantee — the most important number — is nearly identical. The fact that Eagles GM Howie Roseman, one of the most analytical and shrewd team builders operating right now, was willing to give him this deal is a signal that running back value just may have finally stabilized.
Some teams still will go cheap at the position, however, like the Giants. This offer is higher than anything New York ever put on the table for Barkley, even going back to the bye week in 2022. Both sides stuck to their guns, and Barkley was rewarded by betting on himself. Now we get to talk about this at least two more times a year when the two NFC East rivals play each other.
Falcons Sign QB Kirk Cousins
In the annual game of quarterback musical chairs, the Falcons just secured one of the better seats available. Atlanta went where the Vikings wouldn’t go for Cousins, committing to him on a four-year deal.
Tom Pelissero has the initial contract details, with the total value of $180 million giving Cousins an average annual salary of $45 million per year. While the full deal is not guaranteed — a departure from precedent for Cousins — $100 million of it is guaranteed at signing, including a $50 million signing bonus.
Still, it’s clear this was enough to induce Cousins to leave Minnesota, where he was comfortable, for Atlanta. It’s a great situation for him but it’s still a major change.
For the Falcons, this gives them an experienced, reliable and productive option at quarterback that they can drop into an offense that already has a ton of pieces to work with. Cousins won’t have WR Justin Jefferson to throw to, but the trifecta of WR Drake London, TE Kyle Pitts and RB Bijan Robinson is a strong core of weapons. The Falcons’ offensive line has been better in run blocking than pass protection, but it’s also a solid unit. Cousins hasn’t played for new OC Zac Robinson before, but he’s played the past two years in Minnesota in what should be a very similar system. Both Robinson and Vikings HC Kevin O’Connell were QB coaches for the Rams before taking their current jobs.
The Falcons hope Cousins can be their Stafford. We’ll see how it plays out. Cousins has certainly been prolific over his career but hasn’t had quite the same big-game success.
For Minnesota, like it or not they’re now hitting the reset button. With a limited crop of free agent quarterbacks and a pick at No. 11 that’s probably too low for the top three options without sacrificing multiple future firsts to trade up, the future is cloudy for the Vikings right now — although it looks like 49ers QB Sam Darnold is high on their list of dart throw reclamation options.
Raiders Sign DT Christian Wilkins To Four-Year, $110M Deal
It’s early in free agency still, but so far this is a leading contender for the worst deal I’ve seen. Assuming the report about $110 million being the base value of the deal is correct, the only defensive tackles who make more than Wilkins’ $27.5 million per year are Aaron Donald and Chris Jones. The total guarantee of $87 million, again assuming it holds up to scrutiny, is ahead of Donald and behind only Jones.
Wilkins is a solid player but he has to be elite to justify this kind of investment, and I’m just not sure he’ll be able to live up to that expectation. He had a career-high nine sacks this season in a contract year to juice his market, but in the four years before that Wilkins totaled 11.5 sacks. Per PFF, he had over 60 total pressures in 2023, around double what he had in any year before that.
Wilkins is also much older than you probably realize, turning 29 in December. This all factors into why the Dolphins were hesitant to pay up for Wilkins, not seeing him as a consistent, high-level pass rusher even though he has been terrific against the run. They even elected not to use the tag on him.
The Raiders paid Wilkins to be an elite disruptor from the interior of their defensive line and help set things up for an edge rushing group spearheaded by DE Maxx Crosby. If Wilkins can repeat what he did last year, then that will be a solid ROI for the Raiders. And to their credit, Wilkins could potentially thrive in a more attacking scheme, which he wasn’t always asked to do in Miami.
Until proven otherwise, however, I’m going to say last year looks more like an aberration than the rule.
Jaguars Signing WR Gabriel Davis To Three-Year, $39M Deal
The first receiver comes off the board. The natural jump to make here is that this is bad news for the Jaguars’ hopes of retaining WR Calvin Ridley. Davis would certainly provide insurance if Jacksonville can’t get that done and replace Ridley in the starting lineup alongside Christian Kirk and Zay Jones, with more help potentially coming in the draft.
However, assuming the team can make the contracts work, there would be room for both Davis and Ridley. Last year, Ridley played a lot of X receiver, which not to get too technical but basically means he was the receiver in the formation directly on the line of scrimmage and who faced press coverage the most. He did fine, going over 1,000 yards receiving and scoring eight touchdowns, but he’d be better suited to the Z receiver. Signing Davis would free Ridley up to move around a little more.
As far as the player, the highs with Davis have been impressive. He’s a big, straight-line player who thrived as a deep threat in Buffalo but struggled at rounding out his game. He’s a nice fit with the Jaguars who also have a big-armed passer in Trevor Lawrence willing to test tight windows down the field, but there’s a lot of potential for this deal to age poorly.
Titans Signing RB Tony Pollard To Three-Year, $24M Deal
Most analysts didn’t expect the running backs to be among the first to sign, but there have been two deals in the first hour of the negotiating period, both for the same amount at $8 million per year which is likely not a coincidence. Tennessee needed to add to its backfield with 280 carries from Derrick Henry being subtracted. Even though last year’s third-round RB Tyjae Spears looks promising, most teams run committee backfields. There’s plenty of work for both.
While the Titans look like a rebuilding team in 2024 and investing that much into a running back could be construed questionably, they had a ton of cap space this offseason. New HC Brian Callahan needs more weapons on offense, and Pollard is a versatile home run threat if he’s not worn down too much. Having a quality environment around young QB Will Levis is important, so while in a vacuum it’s better to find running backs in the draft, this is a defensible addition for the Titans.
Vikings Signing DE Jonathan Greenard To Four-Year, $76M Contract
The biggest splash of the day so far comes from Minnesota and it’s not a new deal for Kirk Cousins. The Vikings are signing Greenard to a deal that, at least based on initial reports, comes in at $19 million a year. That’s a huge chunk of money for a team that has some cap flexibility but not an overwhelming amount. That’s what it took to land Greenard, who is just about to turn 27 this year and was seen as one of the best options in what overall is a shallow pool for teams needing edge rusher help.
What does it mean? For starters, the Vikings are probably out on other edge rushers on their roster set for free agency. Danielle Hunter is the biggest name, and he should get a deal from some team worth more than what Greenard signed for. But Minnesota might not be able to afford either Marcus Davenport or D.J. Wonnum either unless their market drops out. There’s some depth on the roster and this remains a position the Vikings can address in the draft.
As far as Cousins, this does take away some of their spending money, and Cousins obviously won’t be cheap. Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer noted earlier today that if Minnesota could keep Cousins, they could be aggressive to keep their window of contention open. If not, it makes more sense to try and reset the roster.
Signing Greenard would seem to be a win-now move, but he’s also young enough and plays a premium position to fit into a longer timeline. We’ll see feels like kind of a cop-out answer in terms of what this means for Minnesota and Cousins, but that feels like the best takeaway here.
Bills Sign LT Dion Dawkins To Three-Year, $60M Extension
Every year at this time of year, we’ve gotta watch out for fake accounts trying for a moment in the spotlight. Apparently now the players are pulling practical jokes.
🚶🏽♂️🚶🏽♂️🚶🏽♂️🚶🏽♂️🚶🏽♂️🚶🏽♂️🚶🏽♂️ pic.twitter.com/QrlXfgpfy0
— Dion Dawkins (@DDawkins66) March 11, 2024
After tweeting this, Dawkins proceeded to sign a lucrative deal that should keep him in Buffalo for a while longer. The Bills needed to knock down Dawkins’ cap hit and he was entering the final year of his deal. An extension makes a lot of sense for both sides. Dawkins isn’t a top-five left tackle but he’s a solid and reliable starter at a premium position. That has a lot of value. $20 million a year to be exact.
Bears Signing RB D’Andre Swift To Three-Year, $24M Deal
Chicago pounced with the first move of free agency, signing Swift to a three-year deal to lead their backfield. At $8 million a year, it’s a solid deal for Swift, better than the $6 million APY the middle class at the position was signing for last offseason. So the rising cap has had some benefit to the position.
Swift has been a committee back his entire career and I would expect that to continue in Chicago, which has reliably operated with a split backfield the past few seasons. They still have RBs Khalil Herbert and Roschon Johnson on the roster. While Swift stayed healthy for a career-high 16 games and 229 carries last year, history says he shouldn’t be given too large of a workload. He is a far better pass-catcher than anyone on the roster, however, and a dynamic weapon.
The other notable fallout here is the Bears were speculated as a landing spot for a big-name back like Saquon Barkley or Josh Jacobs. Signing Swift takes them out of the running, which either means they didn’t like the price for the other two or knew they were signing elsewhere.
Colts Signing WR Michael Pittman Jr. To Three-Year, $70M Extension
This is a big win for the Colts locking up a key piece of their passing game for QB Anthony Richardson going into his second season. Ian Rapoport says the deal has a base value of $70 million, which works out to about $23.3 million per year, and $46 million guaranteed.
For Pittman, it’s above the franchise tag and above the key $20 million a year threshold a lot of receivers are targeting, so this is a win for him. It slots him ninth at the position just behind Commanders WR Terry McLaurin, but McLaurin also signed that deal when the cap was just $208 million as opposed to $255 million this year.
That reflects the feeling from the Colts and some in the league that while Pittman was Indianapolis’ No. 1 receiver, he wasn’t a “true” No. 1. Regardless, he’s a reliable and productive player who will be staying with the team for a while. This is exactly the type of move you want to make as a team with your cap space as opposed to foraying into free agency.
Eagles Ink G Landon Dickerson To Four-Year, $84M Deal To Reset Guard Market
Dickerson was entering the final year of his rookie contract and was a clear priority for the Eagles. Deals like this usually happen later in the summer when less is going on, but Philadelphia doing it now says a lot about how they feel about Dickerson. The value says even more.
At $21 million a year, Dickerson is the NFL’s new highest-paid guard, edging out Falcons G Chris Lindstrom at $20.5 million a year. It’s a strong deal in terms of structure too with $50 million in guarantees. Dickerson has made the Pro Bowl the past two seasons, so he’s a quality player. He might not be the best guard in football but contract value is often more about timing than players’ actual place in the pecking order at their position.
What this makes abundantly clear is that a bunch of guards are set to cash in this week in a major way as the NFL shifts how it values the position. If you just go off of salaries, NFL teams are putting more value on guards than cornerbacks, which would have been a wild thing to say just a year or two ago.
Bengals WR Tee Higgins Requests Trade
Obviously this is a huge headline. Let’s break down what it means a little bit more. Higgins obviously wants to get paid, with more security on a long-term contract than what’s afforded by the $21 million franchise tag. The Bengals want to keep Higgins for as long as they can, but at a number they feel comfortable with given they also have to budget for QB Joe Burrow‘s massive deal and an eventual extension for WR Ja’Marr Chase. Reports have indicated the two sides weren’t close in extension talks and haven’t really negotiated since, which is part of Higgins’ frustration.
The tag gives Higgins a few more options than if he were just under contract for another year, and I’d expect him and agent David Mulugheta to utilize everything they can. This trade request is the first move to rattle the cage, and it’s not a coincidence it broke today right before free agency starts when all eyeballs are on the NFL. Higgins will likely hold out of all offseason activities and likely a huge chunk of training camp. Because he’s not technically under contract until he signs the tag, he can’t be fined.
However, just because Higgins requested a trade doesn’t mean the Bengals have to acquiesce. In fact, they have a track record of being quite stubborn in this department. Last year, OT Jonah Williams requested a trade after losing his left tackle job and being asked to switch to the right side. The Bengals didn’t get a deal they liked and kept him as the starter in a contract year, and he’s now slated to walk. They also weathered a similar contract standoff with former S Jessie Bates, also repped by Mulugheta.
Both players were key starters for teams Cincinnati thought could be contending squads, just like Higgins is this year. While there’s an argument to be made that the Bengals would be better off flipping Higgins for a big haul and drafting a replacement in a loaded class, historically that just hasn’t been how this team has operated. But Higgins and Mulugheta are going to try their best to force the issue and get him his big-money deal, either from the Bengals or another team.
Veteran Interior OL Coming Off The Market
Monday started off with a pair of veterans in a deep center market coming off the board. The Jaguars signed former Bills C Mitch Morse to a two-year, $10.5 million deal following a visit, while Detroit re-upped OL Graham Glasgow, who can play center but started at right guard for the Lions last year, to a three-year, $20 million contract.
That’s a solid raise for Glasgow who gets back in the big money after being a cap cut by the Broncos last offseason and returning to the Lions, where he started his career and is a better fit. Detroit was slated to lose G Jonah Jackson and OL Halapoulivaati Vaitai, so retaining Glasgow keeps continuity up front which is important on the offensive line. Getting him was more attainable than Jackson, who could be in line for a deal worth twice this.
Morse gives Jacksonville a veteran alternative to incumbent C Luke Fortner, who has struggled the past two seasons. However, Morse turns 32 this year and is much closer to the end of his career than the beginning. He’s still a mobile center who can get out on pulls in the run game and hold up in pass protection. But his lack of size was a weakness the Bills had to work around in their running scheme, and Jacksonville will have some of the same issues.
Right now Morse looks like the big outside addition to help the Jaguars fix their offensive line issues from last year, apart from perhaps some schematic tweaks. Four of five starters will be back. That doesn’t engender a lot of optimism that things will be much different.
Steelers Signing QB Russell Wilson
Maybe this signing shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. In Wilson’s morass of a 2022 season in Denver, he tossed just 16 touchdowns. Former Steelers first-round QB Kenny Pickett has 13 touchdown passes for his career. It’s not that Wilson isn’t an upgrade over Pickett, it’s that signing Wilson is a signal from Pittsburgh that they’re just about done with Pickett after only two years. For an organization that prides itself on patience, that’s a notable statement.
Pittsburgh will say Wilson is coming in to give Pickett a legitimate competition for the starting job, and perhaps that’s true. But at this point, Wilson has to be the heavy favorite to be the starter in Week 1. His resume is too established and even if he’s not the same player he used to be, this current version of Wilson is better than this current version of Pickett.
Unless Pickett wins the job or Wilson is injured, that means the Steelers will go into 2025, the final year of Pickett’s rookie contract, without a whole lot more information about who he is as an NFL player. On the current trajectory, the Steelers will decline Pickett’s fifth-year option next May and be in the market for either a new starter or competition once Wilson’s deal expires too. So their quarterback position remains very much unsettled.
For 2024 at least, Wilson gives Pittsburgh a league-average starter on a bare-minimum contract thanks to Denver still owing Wilson $39 million. That gives the team a good chance to get value out of this contract because the biggest thing they’re risking is a year to evaluate Pickett. They can redirect the rest of their cap space and draft picks to building up the roster around Wilson.
The Steelers should be solid once again and preserve HC Mike Tomlin‘s streak of no losing seasons. Whether they have a ceiling for anything more than that remains an open question.
49ers Cut DT Arik Armstead
On its face, this comes as a significant curveball as Armstead has been a key piece of San Francisco’s defense for several years. However, the 49ers are facing a significant cap crunch in 2025 with a top-heavy and veteran-laden roster. With young players like WR Brandon Aiyuk and QB Brock Purdy up for extensions this year and next, the team has to be judicious with where its money goes. Armstead has missed 13 games over the past two seasons and turns 31 this year, so the 49ers evidently felt the risk going forward didn’t justify the investment.
Releasing Armstead with a June 1 designation won’t free up much cap space until after that date but it does save more than $18 million in salary from eventually hitting the books. The 49ers are maniacal about reinforcing the defensive line, so I would expect a major move or two to try and replace Armstead.
Buccaneers Re-Signed QB Baker Mayfield, WR Mike Evans
Tampa Bay wanted to prioritize keeping the core of the team together to try and build on their unexpected success last season. That meant a tag for S Antoine Winfield Jr. and new deals for Mayfield and Evans. Mayfield got a three-year, $100 million deal, while Evans signed for two years and $41 million. Both deals are good chunks of change for the players but also not overly burdensome for the Buccaneers.
Evans’ deal was initially billed as one that would have put him right at the top of the market for receivers. The actual value puts him outside the top ten, but at only two years it gives him a chance for another big pay-day if he can remain Mr. Consistency.
Mayfield’s contract also is a handsome raise over the $4 million base he got last year. Still, his deal remains in the new middle class carved out for quarterbacks last year at $33 million a year, closer to what the Saints gave QB Derek Carr than what Giants QB Daniel Jones received at $40 million per year. The guarantee structure seems solid, extending into the second year. It’ll be interesting to see how Mayfield follows up his breakout 2023 season with a new offensive coaching staff coming in again.
Chiefs Signed DT Chris Jones To Five-Year, $150M+ Extension
Kansas City finally gave Jones the monster deal he was seeking, getting more than $30 million a year. As always, the devil is in the details. Jones has more than $63 million in money in the final two years of the deal in 2027 and 2028 when he’ll be 33 and 34. As good as he is, the odds are against him collecting that cash.
But that still leaves around $90 million in cash flow over the next three years for arguably the second-most important player in Kansas City outside of QB Patrick Mahomes. As the Chiefs look to make history by winning their third Super Bowl in a row in 2024, Jones is a massive piece to what they’re doing. It’s why they made somewhat of an exception by handing him a massive contract at market rate when they’ve let others walk.
Patriots Traded QB Mac Jones To Jaguars For Sixth-Round Pick
From New England’s point of view, Jones’ time with the team expired this past year. A fresh start was best for both sides despite both leaving the door open to Jones coming back for another season. Despite the reaction from some analysts, this does not lock the Patriots into taking a quarterback at No. 3 overall, even if that remains the most likely course of action. I’d expect them to look into signing a veteran to serve as a potential bridge starter, either for a few games while a rookie gets up to speed or possibly even longer.
From Jacksonville’s point of view, they gave up a late-round pick to roll the dice on a former first-round pick as a backup option. Landing a decent backup in the sixth would have been an accomplishment anyway and Jones has one good year of tape even if the past two have been abysmal. This could also pay off down the line for the Jaguars, as if Jones has a good preseason, a team could talk itself into giving him a shot as a bridge starter or reclamation project in 2025, possibly netting the team a better pick than they gave up to acquire him.
Browns Traded 5th & 6th For Broncos WR Jerry Jeudy
Last week we covered the Broncos’ point of view with Jeudy in our watch list of big-name trade candidates. His salary was a major drain on his value, as the team had an offer on the table for a third and a fifth before the deadline last year when there were still eight games left of him on a rookie contract. This was clearly the best offer the Broncos had right now and the goal for them was just getting Jeudy’s salary off the books and freeing up snaps for other players.
The Browns on the other hand are doing some interesting things. This is the third straight offseason they’ve made a trade for a receiver who would qualify as a “distressed asset.” They gave up a fifth-round pick to take on WR Amari Cooper when the Cowboys were trying to shed his salary, then last year dropped from the second to the third round in exchange for WR Elijah Moore from the Jets. In addition to the Jeudy trade this year, they’ve also spent third-round picks on Cedric Tillman, David Bell and Anthony Schwartz, all of whom have unfortunately failed to do much in their NFL careers so far.
The execution has largely been lacking here outside of Cooper, who was a home-run acquisition. But that’s kind of the point. The Browns have built a better receiving corps than some other teams who have invested a lot more in the position, and Cleveland has done it with a shotgun approach using mid-round picks. The light is still on for Moore and obviously Jeudy, so it’s still a relatively low-risk, high-reward approach for the Browns.
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