CLATYON- WINNERS AND LOSERS OF FREE AGENCY

[LL2]

Anyone have the "winner's list" from last year?

Here you go

Pretty comical in retrospect.

Winners include: the 1-15 Miami Dolphins, the 5-11 San Francisco 49ers, and the 7-9 Denver Broncos. The Patriots and Bucs did in fact improve.

Losers include: Superbowl Champion New York Giants, the NFC Runner Up Green Bay Packers, and the Houston Texans who just had the best season in the history of their franchise (they were 8-8 while playing in a division where each of the other 3 teams made the playoffs.) The Raiders and Ravens did legitimately get worse.

I think we will see the same thing next year on this years winners and losers. Most of these players are not worth the money they are getting.

Peter King wrote the following yesterday in MMQB

After three days of free agency, I have one word for you. It's the same word I use every year for this weekend, when, say, a non-Pro Bowler coming off a two-sack season and an ACL surgery (Tommy Kelly, Oakland) gets a big contract because of free agency, as do a pair of pockmarked defensive tackles (Kris Jenkins, Jets; Shaun Rogers, Cleveland) from teams that start thinking such players are different than their former teams saw.

"Wow!"

But I'm not surprised, not when the 32 teams started free agency Friday morning with a combined $538 million in salary-cap room, and not in a league in which New York won the Super Bowl just 26 days earlier. The Giants won just seven weeks after they looked like every other just-OK team in football; and if they could beat the almighty Patriots just a few weeks after the Vikings and the Redskins had made New York look so incredibly flawed, then what's to keep perhaps 20 or so other teams from thinking they, too, could tinker with their lineup a little bit and win the Super Bowl next year?

I'll give you some first-weekend thoughts in a moment, as well as a rundown of why the Browns did what they did. But as I try to digest the first three days, I want to caution you about what this all means. A year from now, if you care to do so, look back on the first weekend of 2008 free agency and think: What was all the fuss about? Case in point, think back to last year. On the first weekend, the big stories were about:

• The 49ers rebuilding their secondary by signing cornerback Nate Clements and safety Michael Lewis. San Francisco went from a defense that allowed 3,571 passing yards in 2006 to one that allowed 3,643 in 2007. Not a great weekend.

The Patriots made two big moves -- signing linebacker Adalius Thomas and trading for wideout Wes Welker. Thomas was OK, but wasn't the versatile rusher they thought he'd be. Welker was spectacular, catching 139 passes in New England's 18-1 season while being the security blanket Tom Brady never had. A good but not smashing weekend.

• The Bills signed a new offensive line -- Derrick Dockery and Langston Walker -- before drafting a new mega-back, Marshawn Lynch. The result: Buffalo finished 30th in scoring (15.8 points per game), 30th in total offense (277.1 yards per game) and 15th in rushing (112.5 yards per game).

In other words, buyer beware.

[mngolf19]

What all this says is, it's a crapshoot. It could help, it may not. Just like guessing who will win next year. And no the Vikes are not on this list every year. McCombs didn't spend diddly on players and they weren't on the list last year. Let's be honest now.