NFLTR Review: Top 25 “Realistic” 2023 Free Agents

Curious about which free agents your team might actually have a shot at? We got you covered:

• It’s a weak class overall but there should still be some gems
• One under-the-radar WR to pay attention to
• Shaping up to be a good year to need an offensive tackle?

Top 25 “Realistic” 2023 Free Agents

This is about the time of year a lot of fans start turning an eye to next season, with the haves and have-nots in the NFL becoming more defined. The hard part about most 2023 free agent lists, however, is that by the time free agency actually rolls around, franchise tags and extensions will have decimated the options. 

Fear not though. We’ve broken down our Top 100 2023 Free Agent list, connecting dots from around the NFL to present the top 25 players who have a good chance to be available in March when the new league year officially starts and free agency begins. 

1- Saints DE Marcus Davenport

If you want to read more about the salary cap difficulties the Saints will have this coming offseason and how they might navigate them, you can check out last week’s issue of NFLTR Review. Davenport will be their best pending free agent by a decent margin and they should be motivated to re-sign him. The catch is that they had to add void years to his fifth-year option last year as one of their moves to free up cap space, so depending on how that’s set up it could impact their ability to use the franchise tag on Davenport and ensure he’s not able to reach free agency. 

Now, at a projected sum of more than $20 million for defensive linemen, the tag would be tough for the Saints to fit on their cap anyway. An extension would be preferable but when players get this close to free agency, they usually want to see what’s out there, which means the Saints are competing against the open market.

There are a lot of similarities between Davenport and Jets DE Carl Lawson in terms of their free agency resumes. Lawson had 20 sacks in four seasons with the Bengals before signing a three-year, $45 million deal with $30 million guaranteed. Davenport had 21 sacks his first four seasons but has just half a sack so far this season. Lawson’s advanced metrics made up for his relative lack of production and a similar case can be made for Davenport, who is one of the most double-teamed edge rushers and still ranks 31st at his position by PFF. Because the cap has grown since Lawson signed his deal, Davenport might be able to pull $16-17 million a year, more if there is heavy bidding.

As an aside, this is a good example of why people are saying this is a weak free-agent class. Davenport is our top remaining free agent here — and he’s a fine player on his own merits — but in past years he’d rank in the back half of the top ten, not be leading the way. 

2 – Buccaneers CB Jamel Dean

After testing free agency briefly, Bucs CB Carlton Davis returned on a three-year deal worth just under $15 million a year last year. That will be instructive for Dean, another big corner out of Auburn who was drafted in the third round the year after Tampa Bay took Davis in the second. Dean will likely want to match Davis’ deal, at minimum, and probably exceed it. He can argue the deal needs to be adjusted for cap growth but he also has a few statistical measures in his favor. Dean has seven interceptions compared to Davis’ six in his first four seasons and has consistently been rated higher by PFF. Davis does have 58 pass deflections to just 39 for Dean, however, and is a year younger. 

One way or another, Dean seems likely to earn $15 million a year or more on a long-term deal. Tampa Bay would love to keep him but they have some major cap issues of their own to deal with this offseason and might decide it’s not a judicious use of resources to devote that many dollars to one position. 

3 – Packers OL Elgton Jenkins

There are a few names on here that I am less sure will be available than others. Jenkins would probably top that list. Outside of earlier this season when he was knocking off rust after coming back from an ACL tear last November, Jenkins has largely been a rock for the Packers at any position they’ve played him at. He’s seen time at all five offensive line spots since being drafted, including left tackle. 

Guard is Jenkins’ “natural” position but he’s played tackle at a high enough level to probably live there full-time for a team, either the Packers or someone else. The difference between the top-paid tackles and the top-paid guards was significant up until recently, with the guard market topping out at $16 million and elite tackles getting anywhere from $19 million to $23 million. Colts G Quenton Nelson has helped guards make up the difference with his $20 million a year deal, so Jenkins has a case to get in the $18-$19 million a year range even if he stays inside. 

Will the Packers be able to pony that up? They love Jenkins and I think there’s a good chance they view him as a core player. But that might also depend on what they think his best position is. If it’s guard, those tend to be more replaceable, and the Packers are tight to the cap this coming offseason. They’ll need to be shrewd with how they allocate their resources to fix the issues that have cropped up this season, and spending almost $20 million on a guard might not qualify as shrewd.

I’ll probably flip-flop on this a ton by March but if we’re talking about a realistic chance to get to free agency, Jenkins definitely has one. 

4 – Giants RB Saquon Barkley

Barkley is having a tremendous 2022 season and is a big part of why the Giants have shocked everyone and put themselves in the thick of the playoff hunt. His future in New York is complicated, though. Second contracts for running backs have been an adventure teams have become more and more reluctant to go on after deals for guys like Todd Gurley, David Johnson and Le’Veon Bell aged like milk. Ezekiel Elliott and Christian McCaffrey didn’t fall off the map after signing their mega-deals to reset the running back market but it’s fair to say injuries have negatively impacted the value their teams got from those contracts. 

Since Carolina gave McCaffrey a $16 million a year extension, the running back market has settled in around $12 million a year, with Vikings RB Dalvin Cook, Titans RB Derrick Henry, Browns RB Nick Chubb, Packers RB Aaron Jones and Bengals RB Joe Mixon all signing deals in that range. Saints RB Alvin Kamara signed a deal worth $15 million a year on its face, but once you take out an inflated base salary in the final year, it goes back down to the $12 million range.

Barkley and his reps are eyeing McCaffrey money based on the former No. 2 pick’s elite talent and the salary cap’s growth since all or most of those players signed their deals in 2020. A franchise tag would be $12.6 million but the Giants might need to reserve that for another important pending free agent, their quarterback. Beyond that, it’s a real question whether Giants GM Joe Schoen philosophically is willing to hand out a big deal to a running back, as it’s not a position the Bills made significant investments in financially while Schoen was working in their front office. 

Add it all up and there’s a decent chance Barkley is testing his value on the open market come March. Free agency isn’t usually kind to running backs but I suspect Barkley will be different. 

5 – Browns DE Jadeveon Clowney

A fixture in our top free agents list for years now, Clowney has grown accustomed to signing lucrative one-year deals after testing the market. At 30 in February, the major long-term deal Clowney has been going after for years probably isn’t there. But he can still make some decent coin. It’s doubtful he re-signs with the Browns before seeing what else is out there unless Cleveland really makes it worth his while. He only has two sacks so far this season but he’s still rated as a fairly effective defender by PFF. 

6 – 49ers QB Jimmy Garoppolo

As a part of the reworked deal that brought him back to San Francisco, Garoppolo secured a no-tag clause to pave the path for him to hit unrestricted free agency in 2023. Conventional wisdom suggests he’ll parlay what turned out to be a solid 2022 season into a multi-year deal from another team. Garoppolo has played for both Bill Belichick and Kyle Shanahan, and the two men between them have a coaching tree that has branches in the majority of teams. While the 49ers are loaded on offense this season, Garoppolo still finished with the lowest interception percentage of his career. If you need a quarterback, you could do far, far worse than Garoppolo. 

Something that cropped up in the past couple of weeks, from nearly half a dozen independent sources, was the idea of the 49ers re-signing Garoppolo after this season, especially if he had led another deep playoff run. The veteran’s foot injury changes things, as it’s another reminder of why San Francisco was willing to replace him in the first place. They need someone who can be durable, and Garoppolo has just not been able to stay healthy. If the veteran’s market bottoms out again and he’s willing to be a backup or compete with Trey Lance, we’ve obviously seen that story before. I just think the odds of it happening two years in a row are slim. 

From a salary perspective, Garoppolo won’t command elite quarterback money but as an unrestricted free agent it’s hard to see his market dipping far below $30 million a year on a multi-year deal. The 49ers are 19th in the NFL in Over The Cap’s expected cap space metric for 2023 with just over $1 million right now. They can make space with restructures but they also have a number of pending free agents, including nearly a dozen starters or key role players. They’ve built this team to try and take advantage of a starting quarterback on a rookie contract. Lance remains a massive wildcard but the only way to change that is for him to play.

Ultimately, I think San Francisco has made it clear where it wants the future to be. And I think there are enough teams who will need a solid veteran quarterback to where the market for Garoppolo won’t be nearly as cold as it was this past year. 

7 – Patriots WR Jakobi Meyers

The former undrafted free agent (and his agent) probably are seeing dancing dollar signs thinking about how the market for wide receivers has exploded in the past several months. Thanks to a number of those deals locking up pending free agents, Meyers is slated to be the best available free-agent receiver in March which sets him up to cash in handsomely. No one ever knows what the Patriots will do but we do know Belichick loves a bargain and that makes me think he won’t want to pony up what it might take to keep Meyers in New England. 

There’s a good argument to be made that he should, however. Despite his humble origins, Meyers has quietly developed into a rock-solid receiver. Check out where he places in ESPN’s new receiver tracking metrics. 

Open Score (x) by Catch Score (y), 2022 season.

-Tyler Lockett, permanently underrated (YAC score not shown, though)

-Chris Olave is amazing already, needs a quarterback

-Diontae Johnson is always open

-Donovan Peoples-Jones and George Pickens: not open, still making catches. pic.twitter.com/a61G2B4N2K

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) November 16, 2022

Meyers is getting open and catching the ball at a rate that’s well above the league average. He rates highly in subjective grading as well from outlets such as PFF and Reception Perception. I suspect he flies under the radar due to New England’s general struggles passing the football the past three years and his ordinary volume stats. He somehow didn’t score his first touchdown until his third season. However, I think Meyers is capable of a major breakout with a new team the same way WR Robert Woods did when he went from the Bills to the Rams. 

8 – Patriots OT Isaiah Wynn

Up until this season, Wynn had been a solid player when he was in the lineup at left tackle. Injuries were the issue, as he missed 16 starts over the past three seasons. This year, the Patriots moved him to the right side back in training camp and he has struggled since. PFF grades can be funky when it comes to offensive linemen sometimes, but this season is on pace to be Wynn’s worst grade by far, which matches the narrative. It’s doubtful Wynn is back in New England, and at this point it seems like he just needs a fresh start. 

Despite the way things have gone, Wynn should still have a fair amount of interest. He could be a better fit on the right side with a full offseason of prep but his most natural spot seems to be left tackle even though he’s only 6-2 and 310 pounds. At just 26, some team will throw a decent chunk of money at Wynn banking that they can turn him around. 

9 – Browns RT Jack Conklin

The Browns have invested a ton, including draft picks and money, on the offensive line in the past few years. Long-term it can be hard to keep a group like that together, especially when rookie contracts expire and players need to get paid. Despite major extensions to both guards Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller, the Browns should have enough cap space to re-up Conklin. But his knee injury is a complicating factor. Some teams also are philosophically opposed to giving out third contracts to players except in rare cases, as they tend to be older and thus riskier investments. Conklin is only 28, however. If he’s not re-signed by the Browns, plenty of tackle-starved teams will be highly interested. 

10 – Buccaneers LB Lavonte David

Assuming Brady retires, the Buccaneers will probably go younger as they hit the reset button to rebuild and get their cap back into good health. For as great as David has been his entire career in Tampa Bay, this seems like a natural breaking point. The team will want to go younger and cheaper, while David can find other teams who will be more likely to contend for a title in 2023. 

If Brady doesn’t retire, the Bucs will likely make a hard charge to bring David back, as he’s still their best linebacker even at 32. 

11 – Eagles LB T.J. Edwards

It’s going under the radar, but Edwards is having a nice season for the Eagles. He’s already topped his career high in tackles for loss and matched it in sacks and pass deflections. He’s not a big name as a former undrafted free agent but he’s No. 5 in PFF grade this year and was 10th last year. The Eagles have resisted spending a lot of resources on linebackers to prioritize other areas, and they have third-round LB Nakobe Dean in the wings anyway, so Edwards should make it to free agency. 

12 – Buccaneers S Mike Edwards

The safety market is going to be crowded next year, so teams might be more willing to let their guys test the market and let it dictate the price rather than shell out money for an extension right away. Edwards has seven interceptions over the past three seasons, three of which he’s returned for touchdowns. 

13 – Dolphins TE Mike Gesicki

Given the way Gesicki has been miscast in the Dolphins’ offense, it seems highly unlikely that they’d tag him again or make him much of a priority to re-sign. For his part, he’ll also probably welcome a change of scenery to a team where he’ll be a bigger part of the offense. Tight end is a bit of a misnomer for Gesicki, as he’s truly a big receiver who lines up in the slot on a significant percentage of his snaps, not only to take advantage of his size and receiving skills but to hide his deficiencies as a blocker. Other teams will have much more use for a skillset like that than Miami has had so far. 

14 – Patriots RB Damien Harris

Harris has fallen behind Rhamondre Stevenson this season but he was the leader of the New England backfield in 2021 and scored 15 rushing touchdowns. He’s a powerfully built runner with some breakaway speed and more than capable of being a starter for another team. Like we mentioned earlier, the Patriots tend to not like re-signing players unless they feel like they’re getting a bargain, so Harris should test the market at least. 

15 – 49ers DE Samson Ebukam

We’re at No. 15 on the list and already starting to tail off in a big way, which is another reason 2023 might not be the year to go all in if you have a bunch of money to spend. Ebukam’s a solid player but more of a rotational rusher than a plus starter, which is what you’re hoping to get with the 15th-best free agent most years. His career-high is 4.5 sacks and he has 3.5 so far in 2022. The 49ers like to keep their defensive line deep but they’ll have bigger priorities this offseason. 

16 – Eagles CB James Bradberry

What pushes Bradberry down here is his age. He turns 30 next August and age is not usually kind to defensive backs, even though he’s having an outstanding season and is a big part of the Eagles’ success. Philadelphia might want to turn the page and go younger, especially with Darius Slay getting a little long in the tooth too. But Bradberry should have plenty of suitors. What helps is that his game was never built on incredible speed and he should fit well in the zone-heavy schemes a lot of defenses are playing these days. 

17 – Ravens OLB Justin Houston

At the age of 33, Houston is having a vintage season with nine sacks so far. The rest of the league probably didn’t think there was this much gas in the tank, as Houston had no interest aside from the unrestricted free agent tender the Ravens put on him in May to re-sign him at 110 percent of his 2021 salary in June. It’s fair to say there will be more interest this time around if Houston wants to play another year. 

18 – Cardinals DL J.J. Watt

Watt isn’t the same player who dominated the league and won three defensive player of the year awards with the Texans. Even at 75 percent or whatever he’s at, though, he’s a pretty solid player. Watt has 6.5 sacks through 11 games and eight tackles for loss. If he wants to play another season at the age of 34, there will be a lot of interest. The Cardinals should be in that group but given the sour air around the franchise, it’s not clear if Watt will want to be back. Other teams will probably offer better ring-chasing opportunities. 

19 – Eagles DT Fletcher Cox

With the number of draft picks the Eagles have made along the interior of their defensive line, it appears they’re preparing for a future without Cox that should start in 2023. What teams will have to figure out is how much Cox has left. He’s about to turn 32 and his productivity has declined for the past couple of seasons. Although Cox rates highly here, it’s very possible he ends up waiting a long time to sign, perhaps as long as training camp. He’s the type of experienced player who doesn’t need OTAs or a lot of extra practice time. 

20 – Chiefs WR Mecole Hardman

The volume of moves the Chiefs have made at receiver suggests they’re willing to let Hardman walk after an uneven four years. He’s fast enough to pique some interest in free agency as well, and he’s been at his best in Kansas City when used as a gadget player and field stretcher. He’s not a primary receiver but he could be a decent supporting piece to a passing game. Given how desperate the league is for quality receivers, Hardman’s deal could surprise folks. 

21 – Packers WR Allen Lazard

Lazard is a very different player from Hardman but they’re kind of similar in how their best fit is as a niche player in a specific scheme. For teams that run the ball a lot and ask their receivers to block, especially in three-receiver formations, Lazard will have value, enough to sign a contract that will be a lot bigger than the Packers can probably afford to match.  

22 – Chiefs WR JuJu Smith-Schuster

Smith-Schuster was having a solid season as a possession receiver for Kansas City before a concussion a couple of weeks ago derailed things, though there’s still plenty of time to get back on track. We’ve seen Smith-Schuster sign one-year deals in consecutive offseasons after drawing less interest than expected, as the NFL seems to have pigeon-holed him as a slot-only receiver. He’s still only 26 so I bet he tries to test the market again and hope things are different. Kansas City is probably willing to do that and confident they can match if they really need/want to. 

23 – 49ers RT Mike McGlinchey

We’ve mentioned a couple of times that San Francisco has a lot of pending free agents and not necessarily gobs of cap space to bring them all back. McGlinchey is someone they’d love to have back at the right price but free agency can really drive the price up for offensive linemen. If it gets too steep, the sense from the 49ers beat is that the team would be willing to let McGlinchey walk and take its chances finding a replacement. One way or another, he’s poised to cash in in a major way. 

24 – Eagles OT Andre Dillard

Dillard has been a buzzy name at the trade deadline for a couple of seasons now, as he was lapped for the starting left tackle job by Jordan Mailata despite a significant difference in draft capital between him and the former undrafted rugby player. But Dillard has gotten some chances to play due to injuries since a forgettable rookie season and has looked like a competent starter on the left side. Another team will pay him a pretty penny to come start, and the Eagles will gladly collect the comp pick. 

25 – Bengals S Jessie Bates

It would be a bit of a surprise if the Bengals used the franchise tag again on Bates. At that point, they might as well give him the long-term deal at the value he’s seeking. Cincinnati’s selection of S Daxton Hill in the first round this past April offers a pretty good hint as to their future plans at the position, and it’s doubtful they include Bates. 

Here’s the list of the players removed and a short summary of why. 

Players removed: 

1. QB Lamar Jackson: Ravens will tag him
2. QB Tom Brady: You never know for sure, but it feels like retirement is looming
3. LT Orlando Brown Jr: A second tag is feasible and they traded too much to let him go
4. QB Daniel Jones: I don’t think the Giants will be ready to give Jones a long-term deal off of just this season, so the tag buys them more time to evaluate with hopefully a better team around him
5. G Nate Davis: Good player the Titans should make a lot of effort to re-sign
6. RT Kaleb McGary: Falcons have gobs of cap space and McGary has put it together this season
7. QB Geno Smith: If they don’t sign him to a long-term deal, the Seahawks will tag Smith
8. TE Dalton Schultz: Keeping him was important enough to use the franchise tag, my hunch is Dallas will be more willing to meet his asking price on an extension. 
9. RB Josh Jacobs: Strong candidate for the tag, perhaps even a long-term deal, after a breakout 2022
10. RB Tony Pollard: I suspect Dallas will make extending him a major priority
11. S Vonn Bell: Losing both starting safeties would be tough, and I think Bell will be cheaper to bring back than Bates
12. DT Dalvin Tomlinson: Re-upping Tomlinson would actually save the Vikings some cap space to help keep the dead money proration from his current deal stretched out
13. S Jordan Poyer: Getting older but I can see the Bills valuing keeping their Super Bowl window open
14. OT Jawaan Taylor: The Jaguars drafted OT Walker Little last year and extending Taylor would bury Little behind him and LT Cam Robinson. But it’s hard to let competent linemen just walk in free agency, and Taylor has played well since beating Little in a training camp competition

This Week In Football

• In the latest episode of How The Odell Turns, we got a plot twist. Despite being cleared for football activities by an independent doctor, it appears there are more hurdles for free agent WR Odell Beckham Jr. to clear before he’s ready to contribute on the field this season — and that’s giving the Cowboys, who were previously viewed as the frontrunners to sign him, some cold feet. It makes sense on both sides. For Beckham, he tore his ACL 10 months ago for the second time in the same knee. It’s absolutely reasonable to need more time. From Dallas’ side, it’s hard to invest what Beckham’s looking for without knowing for sure if he’ll play a snap this season. A week ago, I thought Beckham would have a new team by now. It’s looking more and more like he won’t find a new home until 2023 instead. 
• The Titans were responsible for a midseason stunner when they made the decision, at 7-5 and running away with first place in the AFC South, to fire GM Jon Robinson after seven seasons. Tennessee had zero seasons with a losing record under Robinson, and things were going well enough that he signed an extension in February following the teams’ finish as the No. 1 seed in the AFC in 2021. But Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk apparently didn’t like the direction the team was headed in. It’s not hard to poke holes in Robinson’s record. His draft history is littered with missed high picks, and half the ones they hit Robinson declined to extend, perhaps most infamously WR A.J. Brown who he traded rather than pay the cost dictated by the receiver market. Brown made Tennessee pay for that in Sunday’s blowout loss with two touchdowns and 119 yards, and it’s impossible to ignore the timing between that and Robinson’s firing. But being an NFL GM is a brutally hard job, where you’re judged inflexibly on results that are impacted far more by luck and chance than anyone wants to admit. Robinson has a better record than a lot of other GMs. What he doesn’t have any more is a job. 
• The Carolina Panthers’ experiment with QB Baker Mayfield, which seemed ill-conceived and doomed from the start, finally ended this week. Mayfield had slipped to third on the depth chart and asked for his release, and the Panthers were happy to oblige since he wasn’t in their future plans. The next chapter for Mayfield, for a few weeks at least, will be in Los Angeles, as the injury-ravaged Rams were the only team to put in a claim. There are a few interesting things about that — Mayfield is a decent fit for the offense and if there’s long-term uncertainty about Matthew Stafford, he’s a much more viable option than either John Wolford or Bryce Perkins. But expectations should be bottom of the barrel for this season. Being dropped into a new system midseason as a quarterback is like being parachuted into Beijing and told to learn Mandarin on the fly. Seventy-five percent of the Rams’ Week 1 offense is also hurt, hence their 3-9 record. And Mayfield isn’t under contract in 2023. 
• Like we mentioned earlier in this column, there’s been growing buzz about 49ers QB Jimmy Garoppolo‘s future in San Francisco lasting beyond this season. His foot injury this past week, whether it’s season-ending or just 7-8 weeks, should pour a pitcher of cold water on that talk. Garoppolo’s lack of durability is the main reason the 49ers invested so much in moving up for QB Trey Lance. Nothing has changed, which is why I expect the 49ers to move forward with Lance this offseason. As for the rest of this season, it really is something that these kinds of injuries always manage to hit San Franciso. The 49ers had a lot of hype as Super Bowl contenders before this week, and now things are dampened even after an impressive win against the Dolphins unless seventh-round QB Brock Purdy is way better than everyone thinks.  
• Garoppolo wasn’t the only starting quarterback to go down. Ravens QB Lamar Jackson went out with a knee injury and tests later revealed he sprained his PCL. It’s thankfully not a long-term injury and Jackson could miss anywhere from one to three games. The challenge is that two of those are divisional games and the red-hot Bengals are hot on the Ravens’ heels, with only the head-to-head tiebreaker keeping Baltimore ahead right now with both teams at 8-4. The concern is also that this could limit Jackson down the stretch even when he’s back in the lineup, as his mobility is a big part of his game. Ravens QB Tyler Huntley is solid but the Ravens are obviously at their best when Jackson is playing. 
• Things are starting to spiral in Houston. Though the record has been bad, the Texans were at least competitive for most of the first half of the season. They’ve been blown out the past three weeks, though, prompting one quarterback change from Davis Mills to Kyle Allen and now a second change going back to Mills. Allen turned the ball over five times in his two starts, which is a worse rate than Mills’ 12 turnovers in 10 starts (though that’s not good either). At this point, it’s looking more and more like the Texans are going to be looking for a new head coach for the third straight year. 
• Buffalo had been holding out some hope for DE Von Miller‘s knee injury to not be as bad as it initially looked. Unfortunately, exploratory surgery to correct an issue with his meniscus revealed Miller had indeed torn his ACL enough to require surgery. He’s out for the season and faces a nine to 12-month rehab to get back on the field. The Bills signed him to give them a closer in the playoffs against the other elite quarterbacks in the AFC, so that’s off the table. Given the timing, Miller could miss a big chunk of next season as well, especially if Buffalo prioritizes preserving him for the playoffs in 2024. 
• We’re edging closer and closer to the coaching cycle firing up full steam, and the rumors are starting to percolate. There are two vacancies already after the Panthers and Colts fired coaches midseason, and the next hottest seat seems to be in Denver with Broncos HC Nathaniel Hackett. Currently, he seems to be safe until at least Black Monday — the day after the regular season ends. Unless he starts stacking up some wins, though, it seems almost certain Denver will join the teams with a vacancy.
• As far as options, there’s speculation Michigan HC Jim Harbaugh wants to make a jump back to the NFL at some point and his stock is red-hot with the Wolverines in the College Football Playoff for the second straight year. NFL teams are doing homework on Harbaugh but the man himself has said he’s coming back in 2023. We’ll see. If you take everything college coaches said at face value, I have oceanfront property in Tulsa you’re going to love. 

Check This Out

• Any time ESPN’s Seth Wickersham sinks his teeth into a writing project, you know it’s going to be worth your time. His latest is a deep dive with former Colts QB Andrew Luck, taking us inside Luck’s head to unpack everything that went into his decision to stun the football world and retire in 2019. It’s well worth the read. 
• Another neat piece from ESPN this week is this survey of analytics staffers who are currently working inside NFL buildings on a variety of topics, including which teams don’t seem to be on the cutting edge and whether momentum is real.