NFL Free Agency Grades: Everyone Tried Their Very Best!
The Patriots and Panthers spent a lot to get a little better. The Lions were quiet ... too quiet. The Seahawks had a mini-stroke. Find out what grade your team earned!
The 2025 NFL free agent class was — and remains — extremely weak. It contained few difference makers. The most intriguing players (Ronnie Stanley, Chris Godwin, Zack Baun) re-signed with their teams before reaching the open market. That left lots of teams with gobs of money to spend but little to spend it on.
The Patriots and Panthers, among other teams, spent lots of money anyway. The Lions and Rams chose to remain relatively frugal instead. The Bills invested in their own players. The Seahawks and Steelers went back and forth, bumping the curb like they were learning how to parallel park.
Grading such a weak class can be tricky. Fortunately, Too Deep Zone has a teaching background and decades of experience grading weak classes. So this year’s free agent transactions have been assessed using the same curve I used for Remedial Intro to Barely Algebra for High School Seniors circa 1998. Everyone tried. And while there is room for improvement, no one should walk away feeling bad about themselves. Except maybe the Steelers and Seahawks.
Arizona Cardinals
Can you name the Cardinals’ sack leader last year? Here’s a hint: he only had five of them. And he finished tied for 76th (!) in the NFL with just 33 pressures. He’s one of those “positionless defenders” Steve Keim was obsessed with, but he beefed up and became an edge rusher. (The answer is at the end of this feature.)
Josh Sweat isn’t a marquee pass rusher who can provide double-digit sacks all by himself, but Jonathan Gannon coached him in Philly, and the Cardinals are paying Sweat like a quality starter, not the Super Bowl near-MVP. The Cardinals still have work to do on their defensive line.
Other Cardinals acquisitions, like QB Jacoby Brissett and LB Akeem Davis-Gaither, were mostly roster fodder. But the Cardinals retained LB Baron Browning (not the answer to the question in the opening paragraph) and some offensive line starters. They were also pursuing CB Asante Samuel heavily at presstime and appeared likely to get him.
Samuel + Sweat would equal a meaningful upgrade for the Cardinals’ meh defense. Now if they would just do something about their meh offense and meh coaching staff, they could finally escape meh place in the NFC Mehst. Grade: B.
Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons do lavishly dumb things with bold intentionality. The team that overpaid for Matt Ryan’s fossilization years, drafted Bijan Robinson when it had myriad other needs and subsidized Kirk Cousins’ Achilles rehabilitation now brings us its latest innovation: keeping Cousins as a $35-million backup! And losing Grady Jarrett and Drew Dalman as a result!
Most teams would see Michael Penix’s emergence – if that’s what his extended 2024 cameo really was – as a chance to aggressively compete while they have a quality quarterback on a rookie contract. Only the Falcons would think to negate that advantage by retaining Cousins. It’s like they enjoy setting money on fire and wasting whole presidential administrations on dawdling, all the while playing in a division that could be won by a well-organized sandlot team. Grade: B-minus-minus.
Baltimore Ravens
Retaining Ronnie Stanley helps keep the Ravens on the Super Bowl shortlist. Losing Marcus Williams and Brandon Stephens is addition by subtraction: neither played well in 2024, and Williams was unceremoniously benched. The Ravens rarely draft for need, but this would be a fine year to just stock up on defensive backs.
DeAndre Hopkins’ tank is empty, brake pads are worn and tires are rotted, but he still provides … I dunno, leadership? Grade: B.
Buffalo Bills
The Bills extended Josh Allen, Khalil Shakir, Greg Rousseau, Demar Hamlin and Terrell Bernard: all sound, important moves that keep their Super Bowl nucleus as intact as possible.
Joey Bosa is an upgrade over ready-to-retire Von Miller in the sacks-for-hire role. Joshua Palmer arrives to satisfy the team’s possession WR2 fetish; no kink-shaming here, especially with no WR1s on the market. Michael Hoecht is a useful rotational piece on the edge.
Now that I have a robust social media audience again (on Bluesky), I notice that many fans have come to the conclusion that the Bills are a bad team. More specifically, Bills fans have concluded that the Bills are a bad team, or at least a mismanaged and poorly coached one. This phenomenon is unsurprising to someone born and raised in Philly – Eagles fans only grudgingly embraced Howie Roseman from the third quarter of the Super Bowl through last Wednesday – but it’s not like the Bills are losing AFC Championship games by 30 points or something. This is a team that makes the right move about 98% of the time.
Anyone who thinks the Bills are not well-run should adopt the Dolphins for a year. They can enjoy splashy personnel decisions in spring, oh-so-brilliant play-calling in autumn and weekends full of free time in January. Grade: B-plus-plus.
Carolina Panthers
The retentions (Jaycee Horn, Adam Thielen, Austin Corbett, several others) were very good. The additions, even safety Tre’von Moehrig, were middling.
Here’s a rule of thumb for evaluating future free-agent frenzies: say the local team signs a player that you, a well-informed fan, have barely heard of. Your favorite blogger or beat reporter, assigned to write a quick-response story about the player, explains within the first 150 words (the first eight paragraphs, for a sportswriter) that the new acquisition ranked 31st on The Athletic’s Top 397 Free Agent Countdown and had a Pro Football Focus rating of 64.19876986 last season.
In the situation just described, your team has signed a Guy. Some tape expert later writing 3,000 words with 200 GIFs about how unique he is doesn’t change the fact that he’s a Guy. Your team’s coach claiming he fits the culture doesn’t change the fact that he’s a Guy. If he was not a Guy, you would have heard of him, and the first-responders would be able to point to something interesting that he accomplished instead of running to PFF or elsewhere for basic information.
DT Bobby Brown and LB Christian Rozeboom are Guys the Rams didn’t need because they drafted well in 2023 and 2024. LB Robert Jones is a Guy who got sacks because Brian Flores can do wacky stuff with Guys. RB Rico Dowdle is a Guy named Rico Dowdle. Moehrig is a top-tier Guy, but as a safety, he can only be as effective as the defense in front of him. Fortunately, the Panthers held on to some of the best parts of that defense. Grade: B.
Chicago Bears
I may have been too pessimistic when writing last week about the Joe Thuney/Drew Dalman/Jonah Jackson offensive line upgrade. The trio should form a sturdy interior line to protect Caleb Williams and help him overcome some bad habits.
On the other hand:
It feels like the Bears “fix” their offensive line each offseason by signing or drafting a procession of James Daniels, Teven Jenkins, Lucas Patrick, Reilly Reiff, Nate Davis, Coleman Shelton and Darnell Wright-types. Every year the upgrades prove inadequate. And …
These line upgrades feel like last year’s Jets/Giants line upgrades. Let’s just slap three journeymen in there. If we’re lucky we’ll end up with the NFL’s 15th-best line, then all of our other problems will be solved!
The difference for the Bears this year is Ben Johnson, who arrives with credibility as an offensive line guru and deserves some benefit of the doubt when evaluating centers and guards. The Bears also adopted a tactical approach to solving a specific problem, which is always better than taking a gummy and wandering into Trader Joe’s with your corporate card. Don’t worry: we’ll get to the Jaguars soon enough. Grade: B-plus-minus.
Cincinnati Bengals
The Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins deals were announced after Too Deep Zone went dark on Sunday evening, so this is a hasty Monday morning edit. Placating (finally!) Higgins and Chase, while re-signing role players like slot receiver Mike Gesicki (if we stop pretending he’s a tight end, maybe he will too), DT B.J. Hill and RB Samaje Perine, puts the Bengals in position to draft for defense, then fielding a team capable of winning enough shootouts to be dangerous.
All that’s left to do now is trade Trey Hendrickson before the draft. It suddenly seems like the Bengals are capable of doing it. Grade: B-plus.
Cleveland Browns
Appeasing Myles Garrett by making him richer than Croesus was a little like paying Genghis Khan all the remaining gold in your treasury to not butcher your citizens in the streets. It was undeniably the right move. But it can hardly be classified as a victory.
There’s a high probability that Kenny Pickett is the Browns’ opening day starter. There’s also a significant probability of a Russell Wilson/Pickett quarterback competition: the Browns will wait ‘till the midnight hour to determine a winner. Oh, and the Browns could draft Shedeur Sanders and dare Coach Prime to try to blow up the arrangement.
Prime’s inevitable response:
The Browns may be a hilariously inept football organization, but they are reliably compelling theater. Grade: B-minus-minus.
Dallas Cowboys
Jerrah found some 2017-2021 mock drafts lying on his desk somewhere and mistook them for his shopping lists. That’s the best way to explain why the Cowboys loaded up on failed prospects like:
RB Javonte Williams, a plodder since his 2022 ACL/PCL injury;
Edge Dallas Turner, a tape-measure superstar who never cracked the Saints lineup;
LB Kenneth Murray (via trade): a fast-in-a-straight-line defender who bounces from team to team;
DT Solomon Thomas, a former third overall pick who can play any position on the defensive line at replacement level;
WR Parris Campbell, who has bad hands and is injury prone but makes up for it by not being elusive; and
CB Kaiir Elam. Ask any Bills fan about him. Make sure no impressionable children or nuns are around first.
Donte Fowler also boomeranged back to the Cowboys. Jerrah recognizes Fowler from somewhere but cannot quite place it.
Meanwhile, Tank Lawrence signed with the Seahawks (beefing with Micah Parsons on his way out the door), Jourdan Lewis with the Jaguars, Chauncey Golston with the Giants, Rico Dowdle with the Panthers. None of the departures are crippling, but the Cowboys aren’t really trying to get better. They’re acting like an expansion team. Or a baseball AAA affiliate sifting through better organizations’ castoffs. Or the Saints.
On the plus side, DT Osa Odighizuwa and kick returner KaVontae Turpin re-signed, and newcomer Jack Sanborn was a thumping special teamer and useful early-down linebacker for the Bears. The Cowboys must figure that if they sign enough obscure linebackers they will find their very own Zack Baun. Grade: B-minus-minus-plus.
Denver Broncos
Another philosophical musing about free agency: if a team’s strategy cannot be described as “risky,” then it probably wasn’t very good. Even contenders like the Bills, whose top priority is keeping the roster intact, need to take calculated risks. If the best rationale for a bunch of signings is, Welp, its no big deal if these guys don’t pan out, it probably means that it also won’t be a big deal if they do.
The Broncos have incurred some risk in signing LB Dre Greenlaw, safety Talanoa Hufanga and TE Evan Engram. All three were injured for much of last year. Hufanga may never be the defender he appeared to be before his 2023 ACL tear. Engram doesn’t have much big-play capability left (just four broken/missed tackles in 2024). So there’s a chance that the Broncos just filled up their cap ledger and injured reserve without doing much for their depth chart.
Now imagine that Greenlaw, Hufanga and Engram all return to something close to pre-injury form: two Super Bowl-caliber defenders and an 114-catch safety valve. Next, note how minimal the Broncos’ losses were: Greenlaw will replace Cody Barton; there will be fourth-round picks capable of replacing RB Javonte Williams. If the newcomers stay healthy and have typical seasons by their standards, the Broncos have separated themselves from the Chargers, Steelers and all of the AFC South teams. Climbing closer to the AFC’s Super Bowl tier is worth a little bit of risk. Grade: B-plus-plus.
Detroit Lions
GM Brad Holmes spent much of his Combine press conference warning fans that the Lions weren’t going to overspend in an effort to get a complementary pass rusher for Aidan Hutchinson. Holmes was not kidding. The Lions did not overspend. Or underspend. Or, apparently, spend any time thinking about filling that particular need.
Seriously: neither Joey Bosa nor Josh Sweat would have broken the bank, and even a Donte Fowler might have provided high ROI as the “other” guy on the defensive line. Instead, the Lions re-signed Marcus Davenport, now entering his eighth season as a toolsy prospect.
Replacing D.J. Reed with Carlton Davis doesn’t move the needle. Retaining DT Levi Onwuzurike was a fine move, but other in-house defenders, like John Cominsky, were still on the market at presstime.
Holmes and Dan Campbell clearly believe the Lions can improve by getting healthier. That’s sound reasoning to a point. But it almost feels like they went out of their way to avoid making easy, affordable upgrades. Getting from the playoffs to the Super Bowl can be harder than getting from last place to the playoffs. The Lions may still be learning that lesson. Grade: B-minus.
Green Bay Packers
ZZZZzzzzzzz. Oops, sorry. Dozed off. Don’t know how Packers reporters get through March without chugging bottles of Jittery Gamer Energy Drank just to stay awake/feel alive.
Nate Hobbs is a slot tough-guy who is about 80% as good as his reputation; Hobbs put up great coverage metrics as a rookie in 2021, thereby attaining Raiders player you have heard of status. The Packers may try to move Hobbs outside but probably shouldn’t.
The Packers also signed Aaron Banks, who meets all the minimum requirements of a starting left guard, for a reported $77 million over four years. Current left guard Elgton Jenkins may move to center (Josh Myers is gone) or right guard (where Sean Rhyan got trampled by the Eagles defense in the playoffs) to accommodate Banks. This all sounds like expensive furniture rearrangement.
That’s about it for the Packers, except for the departures of a bunch of so-so starters and role players. Packers fans waiting for the arrival of a marquee edge rusher will likely be waiting until the draft. Those waiting for a splashy investment in a wide receiver who can put their offense over the top have been waiting since about 2013. Grade: B.
Houston Texans
Remember when Daffy Duck spent a whole cartoon arguing with his animator? And it turned out Bugs Bunny was the one drawing him?
C.J. Stroud must feel like Daffy right now.
DAFFY STROUD: Help! My offensive line is terrible!
BUGS: [Erases Laremy Tunsil, Shaq Mason and Kenyon Green.]
STROUD: Er, now I have NO offensive line. How about some replacements?
BUGS: [Pencils in Ed Ingram, who was benched by the Vikings in 2024, and Laken Tomlinson, 33-year old the Seahawks were eager to move on from.]
STROUD: You’re dethhhpicable.