The best NFL free agents remaining, pre-minicamp edition

As workouts and mandatory minicamps get underway in June, here are the best free agents left on the open market.

The end of May presents NFL teams with a brief respite in the action before offseason workouts begin at the start of June, and mandatory minicamps get underway in mid-June. From there, it’s a mad dash to the preseason, and all that comes after.

As teams prepare for minicamps and training camps, they’re also looking at the remaining holes in their rosters that they were unable to fill through the first wave of free agency and the draft. Even as summer comes, there’s still a fairly long list of players available as free agents who can help those teams fill those holes. Surprise releases can add to that talent, as the Arizona Cardinals’ release of receiver DeAndre Hopkins did last week.

The All-22: What DeAndre Hopkins has to offer his next NFL team

So here are the best remaining free agents left on the open market.

The best available NFL free agents (post-compensatory pick edition)

Now that the draft is over, and compensatory picks are out of the free agency formula, here are the best free agents left on the open market.

On May 2, a contractual change happened in the NFL that will affect how (and how many) free agents still left on the boards are signed. On that date, free agent signings no longer add to the league’s formula for compensatory picks, meaning that NL teams can sign free agents without future picks going to the NFL teams those players previously played for.

That, along with the incoming minicamps, will have teams looking with a new eye at the league’s remaining free agents with a focus on which ones remaining will best fit their rosters, and best fill the remaining craters in those rosters. At this point in this process, none of these players are necessarily franchise-defining pieces, but you know how it goes. In the NFL, at some point, the bottom third of your roster will be just as important at the top third, and here are the guys who can fill that bottom third quite estimably.

With all that in mind, here are the best remaining free agents in the NFL — at least, for now.

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The NFL’s top 151 upcoming free agents, Nos. 1-75

The NFL’s new league year is just around the corner, so Doug Farrar put together his list of the top 151 free agents. Here’s 1-75, from Javon Hargrave to Linval Joseph.

Before Derek Carr moved to New Orleans, Geno Smith stayed in Seattle, Daniel Jones got a big new deal, and Lamar Jackson led a list of franchise-tagged players that also included Commanders defensive lineman Daron Payne, Cowboys running back Tony Pollard, Giants running back Saquon Barkley, Raiders running back Josh Jacobs, and Jaguars tight end Evan Engram, the upcoming 2023 class of free agents was packed with marquee names.

Now that those names are off the board, this class is less exceptional in a headline sense — but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t still all kinds of players that could positively alter the course of any team. This class is now wider than it is tall, but it’s very wide. Which is to say, there is impressive talent soon to be available when the new league year begins at 4:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday March 15. And a lot of that talent will be more available to the teams that have really done their homework.

With that in mind, we have done our homework here at Touchdown Wire. This list of the top 151 players who will be free agents when the new league year starts is based on comprehensive tape study, and scouring all kinds of metrics to make sure everything matches up as much as possible in the inexact science of player evaluation. The guys up top are (or should be) still marquee names, though most of them are not offensive skill players.

As you go down the list, you’ll see players who may have tried their best in the wrong systems, players who may have failed to live up to their potential at this time, players who are just getting the hang of things, and players who might just need the right circumstance and opportunity.

Here, without further ado, is our list of the top 151 free agents for the 2023 league year, starting with Nos. 1-75.