Best NFL free agents in 2019
The 2018 NFL season hasn’t started yet, but savvy front offices are already salivating at the thought of signing these 10 potential 2019 free agents.
Next year’s crop of potential free agents includes quite a few difference-makers on both sides of the ball.
Of course, the challenge in projecting next year’s free agency so early is that each player could end up being re-signed by their current team before they ever hit the open market. You can safely expect a few of these players to ink big new contracts in the coming months. For the purposes of this list, we will make no attempt to guess which stars won’t eventually test free agency.
Positional value will be a factor in these rankings. Le’Veon bell is an exceptional running back, but the financial reality of today’s NFL will push him down this list. The simple truth is that defensive ends and left tackles are more valuable than running backs to teams right now. That’s not a value judgment on our part, it’s a simple product of how the NFL operates.
With all that being said, there is a lot of potential value on this list. Teams that still have significant holes on their roster right now will be smart to take a look ahead at who could be available next summer. That won’t help them win this year, but it can prevent them from overpaying an average player in this market.
Without delay, let’s take a look at the top 10 NFL stars who could hit free agency in the summer of 2019.
10. Jake Matthews – Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons just spent a mountain of cash to keep Matt Ryan in the fold for years to come. Thomas Dimitroff and company should realize they need to pay Jake Matthews if they want to protect their quarterback investment.
Matthews has been a fixture in the Falcons lineup since they took him in the first round back in 2014. The team made the easy choice to exercise his fifth-year option which means he’s scheduled to make just a shade under $12.5 million in this, the last year of his deal.
The Falcons would love to retain Matthews somewhere close to that number, but it’s not going to happen. Starting-caliber left tackles just don’t hit the open market that often. If they fail to come to a long-term agreement with him during the season, he’ll earn several massive offers from suitors next summer.
It puts Atlanta in a bit of a tough spot. Matthews is a good, but not great left tackle. They’ll likely be forced to slightly overpay him in free agency to keep him in the fold. They might not want to write him such a big check, but failing to do so would leave Ryan vulnerable. That’s not an outcome anyone with the Falcons wants to contemplate.