NFL free agency won’t be kind to veteran receivers
Scores of players will cash in during NFL free agency, but veteran wide receivers are going to have a tough time getting large deals.
The old adage of timing being everything? It’ll be felt by veteran NFL receivers in free agency this spring.
The elite player will always earn top dollar, so Amari Cooper doesn’t apply. He’ll get his.
However, Emmanuel Sanders, A.J. Green, Randall Cobb, Robby Anderson, Breshad Perriman, Demarcus Robinson are all either aging or come in with questions surrounding them.
Ultimately, they’re going to get respectable deals. Good players always do. Yet their guaranteed money and total values will be tamped down by the borderline historic incoming rookie class of receivers.
General managers are constantly considering the salary cap and roster construction. Going into this offseason, they have two roads to choose from.
Road #1
They can use a first-round pick on a receiver and have five years of cheap control, or select one in the following six rounds (in many cases taking a player who should have gone higher but was pushed down by the glut of talent) and have four years of underpaid labor.
Additionally, said player will come into the organization with his best football ahead of him without having to forget one system and learn another.
Road #2
Sign a receiver such as the half-dozen aforementioned names above at market value.
Bring in the 32-year-old Sanders and hope he has a few more good seasons in him. Bring in Green, who has played 35 games over the past four seasons, and pray he can stay healthy. Bring in Perriman and hope his spike in production for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers wasn’t a fluke. On and on.
The risk is there for either road.
Busted draft picks and bad contracts are obviously negative outcomes for the general manager, but there’s a sliding scale on risk and reward. If a receiver with a first-round grade gets taken in the mid-second and doesn’t work out, it’s a worthwhile gamble that came up snake eyes. It’s explainable to the owner.
If a front office signs a veteran to a large deal despite age, off-field concerns, etc. and it goes sour, that’s a tougher meeting to have.
Furthermore, GMs will always look to supplement their rosters through free agency at positions deemed less deep in the draft. For example, the rookie tight end group isn’t considered especially strong this year. Great news for Austin Hooper and Hunter Henry.
The same can be said for the cornerbacks. Byron Jones and James Bradberry should be looking at substantial paydays with only Jeff Okudah being seen as the only surefire top-20 corner in the draft.
Last year, the first-round was loaded with pass-rushers. Twelve of the first 19 picks were front-seven talents, with most being defensive ends, penetrating defensive tackles or rush outside linebackers.
In free agency, only Trey Flowers (5/$90M), Preston Smith (4/$52M) and Za’Darius Smith (4/$66M) struck it rich. All were coming off rookie deals with no red flags. They fall into the Amari Cooper category. The second tier of Ziggy Ansah, Shaq Barrett, Bruce Irvin, Dante Fowler and Markus Golden? One-year deals.
Nobody was going to get into a bidding war with youngsters for cheap waiting in April.
This scenario is best-case for teams needing receiver help. They can land a potential star and have control through most of the decade on a good deal, or wade into a depressed market and pluck someone like Sanders or Green on a short-term pact. There’s value in such a signing.
Go ask the Buccaneers how they feel about Barrett and his 19.5 sacks last year.
For the second-tier receivers to get another big deal, their best bet is to sign for 2020, perform at a star level and hit the open market again in 2021. Tough to accept but reality nonetheless.
Unfortunately for this year’s pass-catchers, old adages exist for a reason. They’re true.