NFL Notes: Dez Bryant, Free Agency, Draft Value Chart

Dez Bryant

Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News takes a look at five teams that make more sense for free agent WR Dez Bryant than the Eagles, Giants or Redskins.

Machota’s list includes:

1. San Francisco 49ers
2. Los Angeles Rams
3. New Orleans Saints
4. Carolina Panthers
5. New England Patriots

For what it’s worth, Adam Schefter reported last night that the four teams sources believe could show “varying levels of interest” in Bryant including the Cardinals, Ravens, Bills and Packers.

We have Bryant featured in our Top 50 Available 2018 NFL Free Agents list.

Free Agency

• Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap.com notes that signings from the 2018 free agency period — not including quarterbacks — are down around 10 percent from last season at this time.
• According to Fitzgerald, guaranteed money included in contracts is up around 14 percent this year in free agency and the percentage of contracts paid out in the first year is up about 6.4 percent for unrestricted free agents.
• Fitzgerald adds that the numbers from street free agent signings are way up from 2017 due to some big names being cut like Jordy Nelson and Ndamukong Suh.

Draft Value Chart

Patriots HC Bill Belichick explained that most teams have their own version of the old Draft Value Chart, but they’re all pretty much on the same page when it comes to determining the value of draft picks in trade discussions.

“One of the problems with the draft chart, if we all have our own draft charts, which is fine, sometimes it’s hard to make a trade because, ‘Well, my draft chart says this. Well, your draft chart says that,’ whereas if we all use the same chart, we all agree on basic value,” Belichick said, via Patriots.com. “Then it’s a lot easier to get what we call, I’d say, a fair trade, which I’d say over the last few years the majority of the trades that we’ve studied have been within a few percentage points one way or the other of being the correct value for the trade. In some cases in later rounds, sometimes those get a little bit skewed just because you have fewer picks. So if you don’t have many picks to work with then you can only use the ones that you have, but a lot of times in the earlier round picks, a sixth round choice will get thrown in or given back or something like that to sort of balance out the value of the trade. I’d say, overall, in the last couple of years, as we’ve studied the trade values, they’ve been pretty consistent with what our evaluations show on the trade chart, which I think is what the majority of the teams use. Relative to resetting the draft, the trade chart, I’d say there’s been a little bit of a modification there.”