Free-agency grades for every NFL team (so far)

As the new league year turns over, there’s already been enough movement to grade every team on their free-agency moves.

In case you were wondering, the start of the new league year means very little when it comes to the advancement of the acquisition (at least in principle) of players who aren’t technically on the open market until that league year turns over. When the NFL officially fell into 2020 at 4:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday, most of the major transactions had already taken place.

With that in mind, it’s actually entirely appropriate to grade every team on the relative wisdom of their free-agent moves.

Arizona Cardinals

(Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

When you’re an NFL executive, it’s always good when you can take advantage of the deals proposed by other, lesser NFL executives. Cardinals general manager Steve Keim was able to fleece Texans head coach/GM Bill O’Brien because O’Brien has an interesting tendency to overvalue players he doesn’t have, and undervalue the players he does. That’s the only possible explanation for the deal that sent DeAndre Hopkins, one of the NFL’s best receivers, to the Valley of the Sun in exchange for running back David Johnson and a minor draft pick swap. This is just one of O’Brien’s many personnel embarrassments over the last two years, while Kyler Murray now gets to throw to Hopkins and Larry Fitzgerald. Not bad. Add in the signing of underrated former Bills defensive lineman Jordan Phillips, and it’s hard to argue with any of Arizona’s moves so far.

Grade: A+

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8, Page 9, Page 10, Page 11, Page 12, Page 13, Page 14, Page 15, Page 16, Page 17, Page 18, Page 19, Page 20, Page 21, Page 22, Page 23, Page 24, Page 25, Page 26, Page 27, Page 28, Page 29, Page 30, Page 31, Page 32