With most of the 2022 NFL free-agent class signed, here are the best player bargains so far.
Two reasons for the Cincinnati Bengals’ ascent from 4-11-1 in 2020 to AFC champs and near-Super Bowl LVI winners in 2021 were the wise free-agent signings of former Saints pass-rusher Trey Hendrickson and ex-Cowboys cornerback Chidobe Awuzie. In replacing Carl Lawson and William Jackson III, Hendrickson and Awuzie became immediate force multipliers on a defense that rose from 27th in DVOA in 2020 to 19th in 2021. Both Hendrickson and Awuzie defined their positions in that defense all the way through.
When going into free agency every season, every NFL team is looking for those types of bargains — Hendrickson on a four-year, $60 million deal with $16 million guaranteed, and Awuzie on a three-year, $21.75 million contract with $7.5 million guaranteed.
Here are the best potential bargains in the 2022 free agency slate so far — potential impact players who signed deals that may not reflect their value on the field, but certainly provide optimal value to their teams.
An NFL officiating crew called a weird roughing the passer penalty on Sunday (go figure) ,and Washington’s Matt Ioannidis was the victim.
It seems that every week, there’s at least roughing the passer penalty called against a defender wherein the call makes no practical sense. It’s early in Week 14, but at this point, we have to give this week’s “You have GOT to be kidding me” roughing the passer call to Alex Kemp and his crew, who are calling the Washington-Dallas game.
With 3:42 left in the first quarter, Dak Prescott completed a seven-yard touchdown pass to Amari Cooper, and that indignity to Washington’s defense was further compounded by a roughing the passer call on defensive lineman Matthew Ioannidis. Kemp’s crew came into this game tied for second in roughing the passer calls with nine (tied with Ron Torbert’s and Shawn Hochuli’s crews, behind only Clete Blakeman’s and Land Clark’s), so I guess he got the quota filled here.
It was clear that Ioannidis contacted Prescott after he had thrown the ball, but when you look at the NFL Operations Manual for all the definitions of roughing the passer… this one is pretty filmy. For one thing, Ioannidis was twisting around guard Zack Martin, which means that he didn’t see Prescott until after the throw. This is a minor push, so Ioannidis didn’t drive Prescott to the ground with his weight on the quarterback, he didn’t go low on Prescott when Prescott was in the pocket, and he didn’t commit (as the rule book puts it) any sort of “intimidating and punishing act.”
Here’s the first rule of roughing the passer, per the NFL:
Roughing will be called if, in the Referee’s judgment, a pass rusher clearly should have known that the ball had already left the passer’s hand before contact was made; pass rushers are responsible for being aware of the position of the ball in passing situations; the Referee will use the release of the ball from the passer’s hand as his guideline that the passer is now fully protected; once a pass has been released by a passer, a rushing defender may make direct contact with the passer only up through the rusher’s first step after such release (prior to second step hitting the ground); thereafter the rusher must be making an attempt to avoid contact and must not continue to “drive through” or otherwise forcibly contact the passer; incidental or inadvertent contact by a player who is easing up or being blocked into the passer will not be considered significant.
If you watch the play, Ioannidis took a step to get to Prescott, but he only took one step when Prescott was in his sight. Most likely, he pushed Prescott as a reflex action because he wasn’t yet aware of what had happened. Ioannidis did nothing else to initiate contact. He didn’t drive through the passer. and outside of the small push, Ioannidis did nothing to initiate contact.
More and more, it appears that NFL officials are more interested in what a penalty looks like than what it actually is. That’s been true of roughing the passer calls all season, and Matthew Ioannidis is just the latest defensive player to get caught in the crosshairs of that particular reality.
Every NFL team has at least one player whose play deserves more praise than it gets. Here’s every team’s most underrated player.
In the NFL, players are underrated for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes, they’re second banana to a superstar whose deeds take up all the oxygen. Other times, it may be that the player has to climb up the depth chart as a little-regarded contributor, and the media hasn’t caught up yet. It’s also possible that the player has an incandescent talent that’s hidden by an unfavorable scheme. And it could also be that the player has had one great season, and everyone’s waiting to see if it’s a fluke.
No matter the reasons, every player on this list has set an exceptional standard deserving of more recognition. Here are the most underrated players for every NFL team going into the 2020 season.
Arizona Cardinals: EDGE Chandler Jones
(Getty Images)
Do you know which NFL player has the most sacks since 2012? We’re kind of giving it away here, but yes, it is Chandler Jones with 96 since his rookie season. That puts him above Von Miller, J.J. Watt, Cameron Jordan, Justin Houston, Aaron Donald, and anyone else you’d care to mention. Jones also has 85 quarterback hits and 307 quarterback hurries in that time, but he’s rarely discussed when it’s time to talk about the league’s edge-rushers. This despite the fact that he led the league in sacks in 2017 with 17 and finished second to Shaquil Barrett with 19 last season. Perhaps it’s because he’s been doing his work of late with a Cardinals team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2015, but no pass-rusher deserves more praise in line with his accomplishments than Jones.
Atlanta Falcons: DL Grady Jarrett
(Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports)
Lost in the specter of the Falcons’ 28-3 meltdown in Super Bowl LI was the fact that Jarrett, the Falcons’ fifth-round pick in 2015, was a borderline MVP candidate with three sacks and four quarterback hits before everything fell apart. Downgraded out of Clemson because he was allegedly too short, Jarrett has been a remarkable interior disruptor throughout his NFL career. Whether aligned at nose tackle or three-technique, Jarrett has totaled at least 43 quarterback hurries every season since 2016. The Falcons rewarded him with a four-year, $68 million contract in July, 2019, but Jarrett still doesn’t get the recognition he deserves.
Baltimore Ravens: OT Ronnie Stanley
(Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)
Who’s the best left tackle in the NFL today? Were you to poll 100 experts, you’d get several different answers. But it’s hard to argue against Stanley, who allowed just one sack and 10 total pressures in 543 pass-blocking snaps last season, and helped the Ravens put together the NFL’s most dynamic rushing attack in his 489 run-blocking snaps. The 2019 season marked Stanley’s first All-Pro and Pro Bowl nods, and there should be more of that to come. Lamar Jackson is the talk of Baltimore’s offense, but it wouldn’t go the way it does without Stanley’s presence.
Buffalo Bills: WR John Brown
(JAMIE GERMANO/ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE -Imagn Content Services, LLC)
The big news for the Bills this offseason was the trade that brought Stefon Diggs to the team, but Buffalo’s receiver corps was already pretty strong, and Brown was the primary reason in 2019. Despite the fact that he plied his trade in a new offense and took passes from erratic quarterback Josh Allen, the former Cardinal and Raven set a career high with 72 receptions and posted the second 1,000-yard season of his career. The addition of Diggs should give Brown more one-on-one opportunities to succeed — especially if Allen is able to get his GPS aligned.
Carolina Panthers: S Tre Boston
(Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports)
Few deep safeties have been as adept in pass coverage than Boston over the last five season, so it has been a mystery why the Panthers cut him in 2017, and why he was unable to find more than a series of one-year deals with different teams until Carolina re-assessed its approach and signed him to a three-year, $18 million deal in March. It’s still chump change for a guy who plays as well as Boston does — he’s totaled 16 interceptions to just eight touchdowns allowed in his career — but it’s a nice bounceback for a player whose desire to protest may have cost him a more lucrative deal.
Chicago Bears: WR Allen Robinson
(Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports)
If any current receiver would be justified in filing a grievance against the NFL for lack of quarterback support, it would be Robinson, who has moved from Blake Bortles as his primary QB in Jacksonville to Mitchell Trubisky in Chicago. Hardly ideal. Still, Robinson led the NFL in touchdown receptions with 14 in 2015, and last season, with Trubisky falling apart most of the time, he still caught 98 passes for 1,147 yards and seven touchdowns. 2020 marks the last year of Robinson’s current contract with the Bears, and he’ll undoubtedly make the best of Chicago’s Trubisky/Nick Foles quaterback situation, and perhaps wind up on a team with a functional quarterback after that.
Cincinnati Bengals: RB Joe Mixon
(Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)
The hope in Cincinnati is that the offense will come around with Joe Burrow at quarterback, but the Bengals are already set at the running back position, where Mixon gained 1,137 yards and five touchdowns on 278 carries last season, adding 35 receptions for 287 yards and three more touchdowns for good measure. Only five backs broke more rushing tackles than Mixon’s 52, and he totaled 14 runs of 15 or more yards last season, tied for fourth in the league.
Cleveland Browns: RB Nick Chubb
(AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Tennessee’s Derrick Henry was the NFL’s rushing leader in 2019, but it could easily be argued that Chubb was the league’s most efficient rusher. Not only did he gain 5.0 yards per carry (1,494 yards and eight touchdowns on 298 carries), but he also led the league in rushed of 15 or more yards (20), only the Raiders’ Josh Jacobs broke more rushing tackles than Chubb’s 66, and only Henry averaged more yards after contact per carry than Chubb’s 3.77. He was a one-man wrecking crew in a broken offense in 2019 — perhaps new head coach Kevin Stefanski can change that, but there’s no doubting Chubb’s status as one of the league’s rising stars.
