Lessons we learned from NFL free agency

What were the trends around the NFL from the first week of free agency?

© Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

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By Matthew Coller

With the first wave of free agency in the books, we can now take a big picture look at the takeaways from this year’s open market. Let’s have a look at everything we learned…

All contracts will look better in a year

There will always be folks that argue the salary cap is fake because the salary cap is flexible. Certainly during the Kirk Cousins era, Vikings fans saw the ways in which an anchor contract impacted the team’s ability to spend in free agency but the cap is becoming increasingly flexible as it goes up year after year.

Don’t the prices for players go up too? Sure, but not the prices for the contracts that are already on the books. When Justin Jefferson signs a contract worth $35 million per year on a $255 million salary cap in 2024, that deal looks a lot better when the 2025 salary cap is $279 million. If it jumps up another $20 million next year, then $35 million is suddenly only 11.7% of the cap rather than 13.7% when he signed it (not that his cap hits will reach $35 million any time soon, more on that later).

The Vikings have a lot of players in place who look like steals in the light of the 2025 cap. Left tackle Christian Darrisaw left a lot of money on the table by signing his $26 million per year deal last offseason. Jonathan Greenard’s $19 million per year and Blake Cashman’s $7.5 million look like absolute steals now.

With no decline in sight for the NFL’s cash flow, longer-term contracts that the Vikings gave out for players like Byron Murphy Jr. and Will Fries are expected to quickly go from sticker shock to totally reasonable in a hurry. This is one benefit of the Vikings structuring so many contracts with bigger salary cap hits down the road. Next year’s $20.9 million cap hit for Murphy Jr. will take up a lower percentage of the cap than if that number was hitting the books this year.

Free agency is for complimentary pieces

There has always been a “buyer beware” label on free agency because teams often keep their own players. This year there was an extreme lack of franchise-changing signings because the top UFAs like Tee Higgins, Chis Godwin, Trey Smith, Osa Odighizuwa, Khali Mack and Byron Murphy Jr. all returned to their old teams. That left the market with a lot of role player types or mid-pack starters getting paid.

The Vikings played in the role player/mid-pack market like crazy by getting two older players who were formerly elite in Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave, a older center, a guard who ranked in the second tier during his last full season in 2023 and rotational types in Eric Wilson and Isaiah Rodgers.

This is not a criticism. It’s only to say that the Vikings are the type of team that is in position to make free agency moves these days because they have extra cap space to overpay and pillar players in place like Justin Jefferson, Christian Darrisaw and Jonathan Greenard in place. They were looking to shore up parts of the roster, not create an entirely new roster from signings.

Initial dollar figures vs. structure

This has always been true but it seems this year the gap between actual numbers and the contracts that were first reported widened significantly. For example, when Murphy Jr. signed, it was presented by NFL Insiders as being three years at $22 million per year. Yet OverTheCap.com lists the deal as being for $18 million per year and just under $35 million in guarantees.

At $22 million, he would have been the fourth highest paid corner. Instead he’s actually tied for 13th in average annual value and 9th in fully guaranteed dollars. That seems pretty reasonable for a corner who ranked in the top 20 by PFF last year and played over 1,000 snaps.

Per OTC, Murphy Jr.’s contract also allows the Vikings to restructure the deal over the next two years and cut his cap hits down to around $10 million and $11 million rather than the $21 million and $23 million that are currently scheduled.

So it turns out the Vikings did not lose their minds by paying a very good corner like the best corner in the league, instead they just structured the deal in a fashion that might look that way at first and then appears fair and manageable under a microscope.

Will Fries has some interesting details too. Per OTC, there is a March 2027 “vesting” date in which Fries gets $10 million guaranteed. That means the deal could end up turning into two years, $34 million rather than five years, $88 million. That more or less gives the Vikings an opportunity to decide whether the deal is going well and they want to keep rolling along or go a different direction after two years.

Each one of the contracts has its own wrinkle. Jonathan Allen’s deal is much more like a two-year contract than the originally reported three years. If the Vikings release Allen after 2026, they will only take a $4.6 million dead cap hit and save $17 million in cap space.

Interestingly, Hargrave’s deal is more set in stone. The Vikings would incur a fairly significant $10.4 million in dead cap if they move on from him after Year 1 and his cap number is $21.4 million.

The bottom line is that not all contract are exactly what they seem on the day they are signed and the analysis of the deal has to include its actual impact on the team’s salary cap rather than the gaudy agent-fed figure.