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UNDERRATED and OVERRATED FREE AGENT DEALS
From the analytics-based analysis of ProFootballFocus.com:
SIX UNDERRATED DEALS
John Johnson III, S, Cleveland Browns
The deal: Three years, $33.8 million ($24 million guaranteed)
The Browns entered the offseason with one of the most well-rounded rosters in the NFL, and the addition of Johnson takes them a big step closer to contention status. The former Rams safety finished the 2020 season as one of the five most valuable defensive players in the NFL, according to PFF’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metric, and he did it while serving as the signal-caller for the No. 1 coverage unit in the league.
Johnson has proven to be capable of playing any role in any scheme. He has recorded PFF grades above 80.0 in three of his four seasons — all of which ranked 11th or higher at the position — and the one season he didn’t was in 2019, when he was limited to only six games due to injury.
This was a home run for the Browns and might be the best signing of the week.
Troy Hill, CB, Cleveland Browns
The deal: Two years, $9 million ($4.5 million guaranteed, also has two voidable years on top)
This contract doesn’t even make Hill one of the 40 highest-paid cornerbacks in the league. Yet, over the past two years with the Rams, he has ranked 14th in coverage grade and 20th in WAR generated among all those at the position.
Cleveland got him on this dirt-cheap deal for one reason only: Hill is a slot corner. It’s the most undervalued position in the game, and the Browns recognized this and seized the opportunity. When filtering to only slot snaps, Hill jumps to No. 1 in PFF coverage grade.
With the signings of two of the top and most underappreciated defensive backs on the market, Cleveland might have won free agency.
Matt Feiler, OL, Los Angeles Chargers
The deal: Three years, $21 million
Los Angeles desperately needed to bolster its offensive line this offseason. The 2020 unit trotted out eight different starting combinations, and the offensive line as a whole still combined for a PFF grade of 48.6, the second-worst mark of the past decade. They made a splash signing with former Green Bay center Corey Linsley, the highest-graded player at the position in 2020, and they followed it up with the addition of Feiler to further improve their woes up front.
The former Pittsburgh lineman is a versatile player who is more than capable of playing tackle or guard. After playing just 750 snaps through his first five years in the professional ranks, he finally started a full season at right tackle in 2019 and finished with the fifth-best pass-blocking grade at the position. He then kicked inside to left guard for the 2020 season, where he ranked 12th in passing block grade.
The addition of Linsley is going to significantly help this offensive line in 2021, but Feiler will make a big impact as well.
Kevin Zeitler, G, Baltimore Ravens
The deal: Three years, $22.5 million ($16 million guaranteed)
Zeitler’s release from the Giants can be chalked up to the team’s cap situation, but it’s still puzzling as to why they couldn’t make it work. Their offensive line was the lowest-graded pass-blocking unit in the NFL last season, and Zeitler was by far their highest-graded pass-protector.
The 31-year-old might no longer be the same player he was back in Cincinnati and Cleveland, but he’s still producing at a top-tier level. He has generated the 15th-most WAR among guards over the past two seasons and ranks eighth among right guards in PFF grade over that same span.
Zeitler’s run blocking will be a massive asset to Baltimore’s offense, too, as he ranks 13th among all guards in negatively graded run-blocking rate since 2019. Ben Powers and Tyre Phillips each saw 100 run-blocking snaps at right guard for Baltimore in 2020 yet ranked 32nd and 44th, respectively, in run-blocking grade (among 46 qualifiers).
Mike Hilton, CB, Cincinnati Bengals
The deal: Four years, $24 million ($6 million guaranteed)
As we mentioned, slot corners are undervalued in the NFL. Nickel has become the new base defense, and defending the slot is arguably more difficult than covering the outside. According to our WAR model, slot corners have proved to be just as valuable as outside corners, and Cincinnati just got itself a great one on a reasonable deal with Hilton.
As an undrafted free agent out of Ole Miss, Hilton didn’t play a single down in 2016. But he got the opportunity to play nickel for Pittsburgh in 2017 and has since established himself as one of the best players at the position. Hilton ranks third among qualifying defensive backs in slot coverage grade (87.5), passing stops (44) and plays on the ball (27) over the past four years.
Corey Davis, WR, New York Jets
The deal: Three years, $37.5 million ($27 million guaranteed)
This contract could end up being a steal for a franchise that has long been bad at the position. New York hasn’t had a single wide receiver finish inside the top 10 at the position in receiving grade over the past decade, and it has just three instances of a receiver cracking the top 25 (Eric Decker in 2014 and 2015; Brandon Marshall in 2015).
Davis is coming off a career season with the Titans in which he finished eighth at the position in receiving grade at 87.2 and fifth in yards per route run generated at 2.58.
In the two years before that, just 63% of his targets were deemed catchable, according to our ball-charting process, which ranked 97th among 104 qualifying wide receivers. Despite that, Davis still managed to turn 26.7% of his total targets into a gain of 15-plus yards (ninth) in those two years.
SIX OVERRATED DEALS
Bud Dupree, EDGE, Tennessee Titans
The deal: Five years, $82.5 million ($35 million guaranteed)
Dupree is one of the riskiest bets in the 2021 free-agent class. Before he went down with a torn ACL last December, Dupree was notching sacks left and right. It’s an attractive stat that teams will pay up for, as was evident this past week, but not every sack is the same. Dupree saw more than 60% of his pressures in 2020 come courtesy of cleanup or unblocked situations — by far the highest rate at the position — and generated a lowly 61.2 pass-rush grade which ranked 71st among 105 qualifiers.
That’s been the story of his career. All but one of Dupree’s six NFL seasons ended with him earning a sub-62.0 pass rush grade. He might boast a high motor, but he doesn’t consistently win true one-on-one situations. His departure from Pittsburgh’s scheme likely will reveal that.
Nelson Agholor, WR, New England Patriots
The deal: Two years, $22 million (up to $26 million; $16 million guaranteed)
Agholor is being paid under the assumption that he can replicate his 2020 production and then some. The Raiders used him in a far different manner than the Eagles, who drafted him in the first round in 2015. Agholor went from predominantly residing in the slot to the outside, where he saw deep crossers and vertical shots in Jon Gruden’s offense. He was a home run threat for Vegas who consistently ran hot and cold. Drops plagued the speedster (15% drop rate ranked sixth-to-last), and while he racked up 21 receptions of 15-plus yards, 13 of them came in four contests.
Even assuming New England can extract the better end of that boom-or-bust play in 2021, Agholor is overpaid relative to his counterparts. He ranked just 45th among 99 qualifiers in receiving grade in 2020 despite it being easily his most productive NFL season. We’ve seen enough from him to know what kind of receiver he is; in the five years prior to 2020, he ranked 73rd among 74 qualifying wide receivers in receiving grade.
This was one of several head-scratching signings by the Patriots early in free agency.
Leonard Floyd, EDGE, Los Angeles Rams
The deal: Four years, $64 million ($32.5 million guaranteed)
Los Angeles had limited cap space available this offseason, deciding to use what it could to re-sign Floyd over safety John Johnson III. Considering Johnson generated 8.9 times as much PFF WAR as Floyd in his 2020 “breakout” year, this was a bold decision.
Like Dupree, Floyd’s 2020 campaign was inflated by an impressive sack total and a bevy of cleanup and unblocked pressures on a line that features arguably the best player the NFL has ever seen, Aaron Donald. Floyd tied for fifth on the season in total sacks but finished 61st in pass-rush win rate. That will likely remain true so long as Donald continues to dominate, but the Rams didn’t need to give up this kind of money to retain him. Plenty of other cheaper edge rushers on the market could have racked up that production in such situations.
This is the exact scenario that unfolded with Dante Fowler Jr in free agency last year. His 15 sacks (no half sacks) in 2019 in his one season as a Ram earned him a lucrative contract with Atlanta. And as a Falcon in 2020, Fowler’s pass rush production took a steep hit, ultimately leading to him taking a pay cut last week.
Rayshawn Jenkins, S, Jacksonville Jaguars
The deal: Four years, $35 million ($16 million guaranteed)
The Jaguars shelled out big money for Jenkins, who should have garnered a contract in the realm of $3 million over one year, according to PFF’s projections. Not to mention, Jacksonville had more than enough money to make a run for a far more valuable free agent safety, such as John Johnson III.
Jenkins played in a multiple roles with the Chargers, and Jacksonville’s new regime was looking for versatility at the position. That being said, Jenkins has never “wowed” when on the field, regardless of position.
Back in 2019, when he played primarily free safety, he ranked 39th of 52 qualifiers in PFF grade when lined up deep. He then moved to a box role for the 2020 season, failing to crack the 50th percentile in PFF grade at the position. His run defense ranks near the bottom of the position, too; among 73 qualifying safeties since 2019, Jenkins slots in at 63rd in run-defense grade (56.3).
Trey Hendrickson, EDGE, Cincinnati Bengals
The deal: Four years, $60 million ($16 million guaranteed)
Just like the other two edge defenders on this list, Hendrickson earned a big payday for his sack total in 2020. However, the 2017 third-round pick’s pass rush grade tied for 41st among 77 edge defenders over his four seasons with the Saints.
Hendrickson boasts 23 sacks on his NFL résumé, and 14 of them came last season, ranking behind only T.J. Watt for the most at the position. But of those 14 sacks, a whopping 11 were either in a cleanup or unblocked situation, which is the most PFF has recorded by anyone in a single season over the past decade.
Even worse, Cincinnati could have used the money it allocated to Hendrickson to retain one of its own, such as edge defender Carl Lawson — who fetched a three-year, $45 million deal from the Jets. Lawson ranked ninth in pass-rush grade and third in win rate this past season with the Bengals, and he also generated five times as much WAR as Hendrickson.
Kenyan Drake, RB, Las Vegas Raiders
The deal: Two years, $14.5 million max value ($11 million guaranteed)
It’s no secret that PFF values running backs differently than NFL teams and even the general football fan. It’s one of the most overvalued positions on the field, yet the Raiders are paying Drake a hefty per-year figure, and he isn’t even going to be the featured back in their offense.
Las Vegas was reportedly attracted to Drake’s ability to produce in the passing game. While he certainly has gotten the opportunity to make plays as a pass-catcher throughout his five-year career with the Dolphins and Cardinals, his grades don’t match the hype. Drake ranks 51st among 57 qualifying running backs in receiving grade since he entered the NFL in 2016, a major factor in him owning a single-season career-best WAR ranking of 24th (2018) at the position.
And here are some deals that ESPN’s analyst Bill Barnwell did not like. Hendricksen, Algoholor and Drake also appear:
Unfortunately, not all of the free-agent signings were as promising as those contracts. I’ve been monitoring every deal, and I’ve picked out several of my least-favorite signings from the past week. In some cases, I think a team picked the wrong player. In others, I don’t love the structure, max value or guarantees on a contract. I also have one in which I think a team misread the market to come.
Of course, not everyone at ESPN has the same opinion, which is why my feelings on these deals might differ from those of our graders. I’ll try to explain why or what has me sour on a contract. I’m not going in any particular order, but let’s start with the most surprising spending spree in recent memory:
WR Nelson Agholor to New England
The deal: Two years, $22 million with the Patriots
This deal is an example of why it’s important to evaluate players over multiple seasons and value them in the context of their contracts. Go back to last offseason. Agholor was coming off five inconsistent seasons with the Eagles, culminating in a year in which the fan base turned him into a meme over his drop issues. He was forced to settle for a one-year deal with the Raiders for just over $1 million. A Patriots team without much at wide receiver beyond a 34-year-old Julian Edelman and N’Keal Harry didn’t outbid them for the former first-round pick.
Agholor greatly outplayed expectations in Las Vegas. Pushed into the starting lineup by injuries, the USC product caught 48 passes for 896 yards and eight touchdowns. He averaged a whopping 10.9 yards per target and 18.7 yards per receptions, numbers that blew away his previous career highs. Drops were still a problem, as he ranked fourth among wideouts with an 8.6% drop rate, but the Raiders got a lot more than they expected for $1 million.
At no point in his career before 2020 was Agholor a consistent deep threat, though. He averaged 11.2 yards per reception in Philadelphia with similar drop issues. When teams sign a player off one breakout season that’s nothing like the rest of his career, it often turns out to be disappointing. We know the Patriots didn’t think Agholor had this or anything close to this in him a year ago, or they would have signed him ahead of Marqise Lee or Damiere Byrd.
Patriots fans will rightly note that the team had to upgrade at wide receiver after seeing Byrd & Co. toil on the outside. Agholor will unquestionably be an improvement there, although he might not get many snaps in the slot with Edelman and Jakobi Meyers on the team (for now). The Patriots got better by signing Agholor, and that should be considered a victory on some level.
Look at the deal, though, and it’s clear the Patriots misread the market. Agholor’s two-year, $22-million deal isn’t very flexible. The Pats guaranteed him $16 million over two years. If Bill Belichick wants to get out of the contract after Year 1, the Patriots will be on the hook for Agholor’s $10 million signing bonus, his $1 million base salary in 2021, $5 million of his $9 million base salary in 2022 and up to $1 million in roster bonuses for the 2021 season. This is either a one-year deal for $16 million-plus or a two-year deal for $22 million-plus. That’s a lot for a guy who was on the minimum last season.
What makes this even worse is that the top of the wide receiver market didn’t develop. The Dolphins gave Will Fuller, a better player with a more productive track record, $10.5 million for one year. JuJu Smith-Schuster took $8 million on his one-year deal with the Steelers. Usually the Patriots are the ones who foresee the market, wait things out and get the right player at the right price. This time, out of desperation, they went all-in on the first day at the market’s deepest position and gave out a deal that’s difficult to justify.
TE Jonnu Smith to New England
The deal: Four years, $50 million with the Patriots
This could also be Hunter Henry, who signed a pact that is one year shorter. Let’s say all the things we have to say about the plan behind these moves. The Patriots were sick of having nothing at tight end after Rob Gronkowski temporarily retired. Devin Asiasi and Dalton Keene, 2020 third-round picks, didn’t do much as rookies. The Patriots had success using 12 personnel to manipulate defenses during the Gronkowski era, most notably when it was Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez in the early part of the last decade.
Signing Smith and Henry helps them disguise their pre-snap intentions, gives them blockers at the point of attack for their running game and lets them create mismatches in the passing game against linebackers. All of that, to one extent or another, is true. The problem is that Henry and Smith aren’t Gronkowski and Hernandez, who spent two of their three years together with the Patriots on rookie contracts. Gronkowski signed a team-friendly extension and then later teamed with Scott Chandler and Dwayne Allen, who were on modest deals.
This is a massive amount of money to commit to two tight ends, neither of whom has come particularly close to making a Pro Bowl during their careers. Henry has never played a full 16-game season; he has missed 25 of 80 games and played limited snaps in five more. Anyone who has watched him knows that the Arkansas product has big-time potential, but he has yet to top 100 receiving yards in a single game as a pro or 700 yards in a single season. He now has the third-largest average annual salary of any tight end in football. The Pats are paying Henry like the player they’re hoping he becomes, not the player he’s been.
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Likewise, while Smith is impressive athletically and has improved as a blocker, he hasn’t been a top-tier tight end at any point in his career. He averaged fewer than 30 receiving yards per game last season in what was his most productive year as a pass-catcher. He emerged as a red zone threat, catching eight touchdowns inside the 20, but that is a huge outlier. He had eight receiving touchdowns on 73 catches across his first three seasons and then matched that total on 41 catches in Year 4. It’s tough to see him sustaining that sort of touchdown rate as a going concern.
Like Henry, Smith will be averaging $12.5 million per season on his new deal. Smith is set to make $37.9 million over the first three years of his new pact, which is the most of any tight end in football history. Teams pay a premium for unrestricted free agents, which is why he will make more over the first three years of his deal than either Travis Kelce or George Kittle will make across the first three years of theirs.
At the same time, paying solid players like they’re superstars is often a move that underwhelms, and we shouldn’t suddenly assume that Henry and Smith are about to morph into the second coming of a legendary tight end tandem without Tom Brady around to elevate them. The Patriots could have gone much cheaper and addressed tight end; they could have signed Gerald Everett and Jared Cook and traded a late-round pick for Lee Smith for a fraction of what they’re going to pay Henry and Smith. These contracts are paying the Pats’ two new tight ends like they’re All-Pro candidates, and there’s little in their collective track record suggesting they are at that level.
RB Kenyan Drake to Las Vegas
The deal: Two years, $11 million with the Raiders
I liked some of the moves the Raiders made, as noted in the first half of my column last week, but the decision to sign Drake is absolutely impenetrable. What are they doing? This is an organization that has already committed a first-round pick at running back to Josh Jacobs and a brain trust that just erased most of its expensively assembled offensive line. If the Raiders were using the savings from moving on from center Rodney Hudson and guard Gabe Jackson on what has been a tragic defense, I would understand.
Committing this much money to Drake, though, is bizarre. I don’t mind the idea of adding him as a complementary back, since he can catch the ball and has been effective in a 1A role. Given the transition tag last offseason by the Cardinals, Drake routinely looked like the second-best back on his own team behind Chase Edmonds. He posted a Success Rate of 50% and averaged 4.0 yards per carry, a mark boosted by a 69-yard touchdown against the Cowboys in garbage time. If this were a one-year, $3 million deal, Drake wouldn’t be on this list.
With Drake guaranteed $8.5 million for 2021, though, the Raiders are committing too much to their backfield. There’s been talk that they will use Drake as a “joker” and focus more on his receiving skills. Well, last year, the Raiders drafted Kentucky’s Lynn Bowden in the third round and tried to convert him into a running back to play the joker role. They gave up on it by the end of training camp and traded him to the Dolphins before he ever played a game in Las Vegas. Now, if they grow sick of Drake in that role as quickly, they’re stuck with a much more expensive check.
LB Jarrad Davis to New York
The deal: One year, $5.5 million with the Jets
Who was competing with the Jets to pay Davis this much money? An oft-frustrating middle linebacker under Matt Patricia in Detroit, Davis lost his job gradually over the past three seasons and only played 29% of the defensive snaps in 2020. The 2017 first-rounder struggled both with his tackling and his coverage across his time with the Lions, although he did have six sacks and 10 knockdowns in 2018.
If there’s any place the Jets probably didn’t need to spend money, it’s at inside linebacker. C.J. Mosley is in Year 2 of his massive contract having played just two games in two years, owing to a groin injury and opting out of the 2020 campaign. (His contract didn’t toll because he opted out.) The Jets still owe him $14 million in guarantees over the next two years, and there might not be much trade interest given that he has base salaries of $16 million, $17 million and $17 million between 2022 and 2024. Davis could line up next to Mosley or move to another role, but off-ball linebacker typically isn’t a tough position to fill for much money in the NFL.
Let’s say Davis breaks out under his first year with new Jets coach Robert Saleh. That’s great. If that happens, the Jets … have to give him a brand-new deal or lose him in free agency. That’s not helpful in the long term. If they were going to pay Davis a little over the minimum to rebuild his career, a one-year deal would have been no big deal. They instead committed $5.5 million guaranteed to a guy who wasn’t even a starter on one of the league’s worst defenses last season. They needed to get at least one team-friendly unguaranteed year tacked onto the contract to gain some leverage if Davis does improve dramatically.
CB Ronald Darby to Denver
The deal: Three years, $30 million with the Broncos
Darby has had a truly weird career. After looking like a total disaster during preseason as a rookie with the Bills, the Florida State product then stepped into the starting lineup in Week 1 and looked like a seasoned pro. He was impressive before taking a step backward in his sophomore season, after which he was dealt to the Eagles for Jordan Matthews. He suffered what looked to be a serious injury in Week 1 but later came back and played excellent football through Philadelphia’s unlikely run to the Super Bowl.
The second-rounder’s two subsequent seasons in Philadelphia combined injury and subpar play, leading Washington to sign him to a one-year, $3 million deal last offseason. Darby had an excellent bounce-back year, starting all 16 games while holding opposing receivers to a passer rating of 81.0. He was one of the best players on what was quietly the league’s second-best pass defense by DVOA.
The Broncos are committing two years and $19.5 million in guarantees to Darby, which seems dangerous given his inconsistency and injury history. It’s just enough money to be troublesome if he disappoints in Year 1. The Broncos needed help at cornerback, but I would have preferred spending up a bit to go after William Jackson, who landed a three-year deal with Washington.
DL Leonard Williams to New York
The deal: Three years, $63 million with the Giants
We should have known this one was coming. Giants general manager Dave Gettleman made a totally unexpected trade to acquire Williams from the Jets in 2019, months before Williams would have become a free agent. After an anonymous half-season, the Giants then franchised him before the 2020 campaign. He responded with the best year of his career, racking up 11.5 sacks to go with 30 knockdowns. Having made his general manager look like a genius, Williams has been rewarded with $45 million guaranteed over the next two seasons. If the Giants thought he was worth a franchise tag after a half-sack in eight starts, it makes sense that they would give him a massive deal after a breakout year.
To put Williams’ deal in context, the list of defensive linemen who top $63 million over the first three years of their deal isn’t long, as Joey Bosa, Khalil Mack, DeMarcus Lawrence, Frank Clark, and Aaron Donald are the only guys who qualify. They each had more impressive track records before their respective deals than Williams. Sacks don’t tell the whole story, and he has always had impressive knockdown totals, but this is a player who averaged 3.5 sacks per season before his 11.5-sack total in 2020.
Six of those 11.5 sacks came across two games in the second half, with Williams racking up three sacks against both the Seahawks and Cowboys. Two of those sacks were cleanups on pressures created by other players. Another was a coverage sack against Russell Wilson. He went totally unblocked on a twist to get Wilson for a third time and was let to roam free on a direct path to Andy Dalton for another. On five of those six sacks, he was the guy who recorded the statistic but not the one who created the opportunity.
Williams is a good player. Few linemen can bounce around the line, hold up against the run and threaten offensive linemen from any sort of alignment. He can do that at his best, which is why the Giants were so interested in him in the first place. This deal pays him like he’s a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate, though, and I’m not even sure he was that guy in 2020.
EDGE Trey Hendrickson to Cincinnati
The deal: Four years, $60 million with the Bengals
Before last season, Hendrickson had been a lesser-known member of the vaunted Saints’ 2017 draft class. A rotational edge rusher with 6.5 sacks across 30 games and three seasons, he was nearly buried into a role as the team’s fourth defensive end when the Saints tried to use another team’s cap space to sign Jadeveon Clowney.
Instead, with Clowney on the Titans and former first-round pick Marcus Davenport struggling to stay healthy, Hendrickson started 15 games and blew away his prior numbers as a pass-rusher. The Florida Atlantic product had 13.5 sacks, 12 tackles for loss and 25 knockdowns last season, each of which topped his career totals heading into 2020. The breakout campaign priced him out of New Orleans and earned him a big new contract with the Bengals.
In many ways, all is not what it seems. Let’s start with those juicy sack numbers. Just about every closer look you can find toward Hendrickson’s pass-rushing production suggests that total to be very generous. ESPN’s pass rush win rate has Hendrickson 26th out of 46 qualifying edge rushers and suggested he created 7.5 sacks, which was 24th in the league. Pro Football Reference’s charting data pegs him as having generated just seven hurries last season, which ranked 78th among all defenders. Those numbers are fine, but no player is getting $15 million for that sort of production.
What gives? Well, take a closer look at his sacks and you’ll see a lot of plays in which he was the guy a scrambling quarterback ran into when his receivers were covered. I counted 4½ coverage sacks for Hendrickson and several others where he cleaned up after another Saints defender created an initial pressure. He created four sacks for himself, by my count, and while two of them were against Chiefs left tackle Eric Fisher, I tend to side with the skeptics when it comes to Hendrickson’s pass-rushing production.
The structure of this deal, too, seems to suggest that the league was skeptical. The four-year, $60 million deal is really a one-year, $20 million deal with the opportunity for the Bengals to get out of the contract after one year with $7.5 million in dead money on their 2021 cap. If Hendrickson looks more like the solid rotation end of 2017-19 than he does the paper superstar of 2020, Cincinnati can move on without too much damage.
At the same time, though, the franchise tag for edge rushers in 2020 is only $16.1 million. The Bengals could have used the franchise tag to keep one of their own in Carl Lawson, who doesn’t have the same sack numbers as Hendrickson did in 2020, but who has a much better track record of creating knockdowns and hurries over his career. Lawson has generated a knockdown once every 22.6 snaps to Hendrickson’s once every 32.0 snaps. Lawson has produced hurries and created sacks at a higher rate than Hendrickson. Lawson also seemed open to signing with the Bengals on a multiyear deal and took an identical average annual value to sign with the Jets. I would rather have given him this contract.
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