The Biggest Losers of NFL Free Agency

Let's pivot over to the losers, Albert, and you and I both, if you have a winner or no, I did Mike Evans, 49ers.

Mike Evans, that was my big one.

I'm brain dead.

I like for anybody who thinks that like I made my brain when I tripped over the Tyler Smith thing earlier, like my brain's kind of mush right now.

So just fair warning for the back half of this show, but let's go.

Um, you and I both had an obvious one.

You, you, uh, you lobbed it up first, so I'm gonna give this one to you.

Um, I think the, the obvious loser of day one here is, is Trey Hendrickson.

Um, yeah, and, um, you know, Trey, for I, I feel for him, in a lot of ways because I think he's out, he's overproduced his entire career and deserves to be in that.

Conversation of elite edge players, but for one reason or another, it just finds himself like on the outer reaches of that and, and to wait through day one.

Of free agency, to not make it, to, to not have a team basically come out and say, you're my plan A.

Then you watch um uh OA signed for 25 million a year, Max Crosby goes to uh the Ravens, uh, you know, the Raiders loaded up on, they got like quitty pay.

I mean , like, you're, you're starting to see the chairs disappear.

Um, in this game of musical chairs, and you have to figure out what's next for you, and I just think that, you know, I mean, I don't know, you explain it to me.

Why, why is I think it's honestly, like , I think it's a, um, So, to understand the history of, of this thing, this goes back to when Trey Hendrickson was first a free agent, right?

He was a good, not great player.

He really blossomed in Cincinnati, but he was part of that draft class in New Orleans, right?

With, I mean, insane.

It was Marshawn Lattimore, Ryan Ramchik, Alvin Kamara , Alex Anzalone, um, Marcus Williams.

Um, and, and Hendrickson, right?

Like, so I, I just 6, like really good, like NFL players, like not just starters, but really good starters.

And, um, you know, so, You know, he hits the market and he hits the market in 2021, which was the COVID-affected free agent year and so a lot of teams did deals with players that wound up being bargains because the cap was depressed that year because there was uncertainty because there were less teams out there spending.

And so he did a deal, I think it was at like $14 million a year, which didn't, which, which seemed like a good deal for him at the time because it was kind of like a betting on the upside thing, but they signed him for 4 years.

So he outperforms it, right?

And then two years later, he goes back to the table, I want a correction.

It becomes a big offseason thing.

So, in July 23, he signs a one-year extension.

So, the one-year extension goes through 25, so now he's signed for three years.

Then he has back to back 17.5 sack seasons, you know, so like, I, he goes back to the table in 24.

They say, well, we just redid you, goes back to the table again in 25.

They gave him a massive bump up to like $30 million right?

To, to, to kind of help correct what, what, what was, was clearly, you know, an outdated contract.

So, three straight offseasons, he has this contract issue with the Bengals.

A lot of it stems all the way back to being a free agent in that COVID offseason.

And they keep working with him and working with him and working with him.

Um, he chose to sign the one-year extension, which prevented him from getting out there on the market after the back to back 17.5 sack seasons.

That's a risk he knew he was taking.

And then the last year after those two seasons, not only is he a year older.

But I could have told you in October, no, the Bengals thought like he shut it down on them and was so pissed off after everything.

So how do you think the rest of the league is gonna digest that, you know, and they're gonna look at it and say, yeah, he's a really good player, but He's 32, or he's gonna be 32, I believe.

He is like, like he's now a year we're separated from that really great two-year stretch.

And I think a lot of teams look at it and say like, I would rather go in on the injury risk on Jalen Phillips, you know, or I would rather take a flyer on Cody Pay, who was a first-round pick.

And so I think he's kind of to some degree done this to himself, um.

And, you know, I, I don't know.

I thought Indianapolis and Dallas were gonna be involved at the beginning of this, you know, I wrote it on Sunday night.

Um, the Colts have Loan Arumo there.

I do think the Colts are still a factor here, but they went and paid Alec Pierce what they paid him, you know, so that to some degree affects everything.

Um, and they've got a lot of mouths to feed there, um, you know, with guys that they've paid or will pay.

And the other team was Dallas, and Dallas traded for Sean Gary.

Stop with that.

Everybody like, uh, the, the, just as, as a brief aside, like the, the swooping in and being like, oh, the Cowboys are right in it to the end with Max Crosby to fucking save that.

I, I, I just, this is Jerry Jones special.

It's like, oh, I was right there in it all the way at the end.

He was, they were, they were, they offered a 1 and a 2.

They offered a 1 and 2.

So anyway, like I, he offered a 1 and 2 knowing that he wasn't gonna take it.

Like I know.

I, anyway, anyway, I look at it, I offered $100,000 for the house that I bought.

Turns out it costs a lot more than that, you know.

So was I in it or was I just being a jackass, you know?

Well, to be fair, nobody, I don't think anybody was like, I don't think anybody was going where the Ravens went, and the like, like, and this is an aside to that because we haven't covered the Max trade.

We'll, we'll, we'll cover it maybe in some sort of recap coming up, but like I, I think the The Max situation to me was so dictated by the Cowboys and the Ravens had top half of the first-round picks.

The Eagles didn't, the Patriots didn't.

The other teams that might, that, that, that were sort of in that mix were not like the Bengals threw their hat in the ring at the end, believe it or not, but they weren't picking, but, but they weren't willing to go where the, where the Ravens went.

The fact that the Ravens had the 14th pick, and then I actually did run the numbers on this, right?

Like the Bills bowed out at the end.

For the Bills to match the point value of the 14th pick with their pick, they would have had to add the 40th pick, right?

Like a high 2nd-rounder.

So there's a huge difference there.

Anyway, that's, that's another story for another day.

I just think like, this is like, I, I, I look at like Trey Hendrickson's handling of all of this, and it's like, You kept painting yourself in these corners, you know, and then you got upset when , when you were stuck there, and, you know, the, the thing to do, and did the Bengals play hardball with you?

Yeah, maybe, but Like the thing to do would have been like, I need to find a way to get to free agency, but you decided to take the money with 2 years left instead, which is your choice.

So, I, I just, I mean, there's trade-offs in these contracts.

I'm usually on the player's side with this stuff, but there's trade-offs in all of these deals that you do.

And Trey Hendrickson kept taking trade-offs.

And now at the end, it surprised, like, like now it's like, well, Now you've left yourself in this position at the end where maybe another team feels like they don't trust you because of how things ended in Cincinnati, and you're older.

And, you know, you're a little further separated from that great two-year run you had where you had 35 sacks over, over the two seasons.

Yeah, you , it was interesting because you brought up over the course of this, the team that uh I would consider my loser and that at least so far, and I, I have a feeling we're gonna Go a little bit toe to toe on this possibly, um, but is the Indianapolis Colts, uh, is the Indianapolis Colts.

I despise you don't like the Pierce for Pittman trade-off.

I don't like that.

I don't like signing Pierce before your quarterback, and I don't like the idea.

Of running back a team that finished 8 and 9 last year, uh, and just so the listeners, if anybody's new to the show, Connor was the preeminent Colts guy over the summer.

I say nationwide.

He was, he was the Colts guy, and when they got off that huge start like.

Connor O'Connor was feeling it a little bit, so maybe this is.

I don't know.

Maybe this is, maybe, maybe this is, maybe this is a little retribution for the finish.

You know what it is?

It's like, uh, you're a stock trader, and I am now dumping.

Like I bought all my, uh, I bought all my dot.

I, I bought all my haw tua coin and I'm getting rid of it before, uh, it, it, it hits ground zero, So, OK, let me just take you through now because here's, here's the Colts' reasoning for this.

We gotta pay out Pierce top of the market.

Uh, we gotta pay, uh, Daniel Jones near the top of the market.

We gotta do all this because we were 8-2 last year before Daniel Jones got hurt.

Let's go back and look at 8-2, OK.

First win over the Dolphins, fired their head coach.

Second win over the Broncos by 1 point.

Third win over the Titans, fired their head coach.

Oh, that was a leverage penalty.

They beat that was a leverage penalty win, yeah.

Uh, 4th win over the Raiders, fired their head coach.

5th win over the Cardinals, fired their head coach.

6th win over the Chargers, probably one of their two quality wins during that time.

Um.

6th win or 7th win over the Titans, fired their head coach.

Uh, 8th win over the Falcons.

Guess what happened?

They fired their head coach.

It's like, come on.

Like this is not OK.

This is not a good team.

It was, it was an OK team in a phenomenal situation.

So I've gone back and forth on this a little bit.

There was a Michael Pittman thing because I do think the Steelers did well to get Pittman for what they got him for, right?

I think we agree on that, yeah, um .

I think the Alec Pierce thing to me is there were a bunch of teams in on him.

Um, I'd be a little worried about him being a one-trick pony.

Um, you know, and I think, and I said, I've said this a couple of places over the last day, they need him to be more to make that quarterback, that, that contract worth it.

I think the reason you do it if you're the Colts is because it's, it's much harder to find what Alec Pierce does than it is to find what Michael Pittman does.

Michael Pittman is a tough guy, like possession receiver, chain mover.

He, you know, I think he had, he's had over 80 catches in 4 of the last 5 years.

I think that's right.

You can look that up.

I think that's the number.

Um, Michael Pittman is just a damn good football player who's reliable, who you can count on.

Pierce is like the guy who is gonna take the top off the defense, who might carry coverage.

And I just think if you're the Colts and you look at those two in a vacuum, It's, well, who can we replace in the draft?

Who can we replace, you know, and, you know, now you have Tyler Warren, so he can replace some of the things that, that Pittman does, right?

You have Josh Downs, who's a really good slot.

Would you have, like, with, would you have a harder time replacing Pierce or Pittman in the draft?

No, you'd have a harder time replacing Pierce.

I get that, um, but what I think that's why you do it.

And, but that doesn't mean like, That doesn't mean I agree with where they're at a quarterback.

I think a quarterback, they're in a messy situation now.

Like, and that's why, like, honestly, like a lot of people scoffed when they saw the Seahawks gave Sam Darnold last year.

How smart do the Seahawks look now?

It's just like $34 million and they can, they can just cut him at any time.

This is, it's like a year to year contract, right?

Do you think Daniel Jones would have taken the Sam Darnold contract in Indianapolis last year?

Yeah, Yeah, right.

So like now, you're in this weird spot where, like, he wants over 50.

You've offered him in the 30s, and if he just signs his tender, which I think is like a little under 38, right?

Well then, That's Oh, wait a minute.

No, no, no, no.

So that would be, so, so then you're talking about then next year he'll have a 2nd tag, right, and a 3rd tag is like logistically impossible.

So if he plays well on a tag, and then next year you gotta tag him again, it becomes incredibly difficult to sign him to a contract and that's leverage is that this is, this to me, you know what this is.

This is Dak Prescott.

Or uh when AG texted me it's Kirk 2.0 to play a tag game and now like you start tagging a quarterback like the, the quarterback really has the hammer is if he plays well, which you're invested in him doing, my God, is he gonna have leverage next year, you know, and you have to look ahead to those things if you're the Colts.