I think Rivera knows he can afford to either go with what he’s got for another year or bring in a free agent QB on a 1- or 2-year deal and strengthen the team in other spots now, then draft a QB next spring. They’re not that close right now and he knows it. He’s still got enough slack on the leash that he can sell Dan Snyder on that.
Pats busy on the first day of non-tampering free agency. Matt Judon, Jonnu Smith, Jalen Mills, Devin Godchaux, and Nelson Agholer all reportedly signing with New England. The Packers can’t match the Chargers’ willingness go make Corey Linsley the highest paid center in the NFL. And young pass rusher Yannick Ngakoue goes to the Raiders, his 4th team in a year.
Interesting first day.
It’s Fitzmagic time in D.C. as Ryan Fitzpatrick heads to WFT. https://twitter.com/adamschefter/status/1371658836566753284?s=21
I like that signing alot. While he is definitely a gunslinger, Fitzpatrick can be a solid NFL QB, and paying him just $10 million is pretty good value for a veteran. Now they can draft a couple project QBs to see if they can find a long term solution.
Also, fuck Dan Snyder.
And now with Hunter Henry the Pats have two of the top 4 highest paid TEs in the league. AFC East teams might want to shore up their linebacking corps…
The Saints sign Jameis Winston to a 1 year incentive laden contract worth $5.5 million that could be worth up to $12 million. If somehow Sean Payton can limit the turnovers, that’s a helluva deal for a starting level NFL QB.
There is a part of me that is convinced that Payton picked Taysom Hill to be the Saints QB last year when Brees was injured just to keep the price down on Winston.
Fitzpatrick’s problem is he’s the opposite of solid. He can be great or mediocre and you can’t predict how he will play.
Belichick and the Patriots are uncharacteristically opening the checkbook early and wide in free agency. A Boston Globe reporter wrote that Belichick is “buying a new team” after a disappointing 2020. And while fans must be pretty excited at a lot of these upgrades, it does have a whiff of desperation about it.
It’s hard to imagine they have the money left to bring in a top-tier QB, so I’d have to guess that BB is looking at the draft for a longer term solution there.
My guess is that–because of COVID–this season is an especially efficient year for free agency if one has the money. If there was ever a time to go all-in on free agency this is it. Belichick is doing what he’s famous for: pivoting his plans to take advantage of the situation.
I think this explains why he went with Newton. Once his preferred QB plans failed (i.e. Jimmy G) he instead went with a cheap option, giving him even more money for free agency.
One of my favorite writers, Bill Barnwell, had an article about 5 years ago in which he pondered a coach trying a different path to team building. Most teams start with the QB and end up paying way too much, crippling the rest of the team (I think Jay Cutler was the prime example). He wondered if a coach might be willing to do something different: find a cheap but decent QB and use the excess money to build a really good team around him. Barnwell concluded that only one coach had the cajones and job security to try it: Belichick.
The Fitzpatrick signing is fine. That’s backup QB money for somebody who is at a minimum a solid gap filler.
As for the Patriots, they just don’t have a lot to trade for a top tier QB, even if they were willing to part with the draft picks required for it. That leaves drafting last 1st round or 2nd round QBs at best and developing for the future. And in the short term, signing cheap one-year options on veteran free agents with lots of questions, which is what they did with Newton and I expect they’ll sign 1-2 more to similar deals. Wouldn’t be shocked if Jacoby Brissett ended up back there.
And just got breaking news that the Bears have solved their problems with…Andy Dalton.
I still don’t know what to make of the Fitzpatrick signing. A good point was made on a sports talk show: Fitzpatrick has spent most of his career playing on sucky teams and thus playing from behind, hence the high number of INTs. Let’s see if WFT can get someone else to be a clear #2 receiver. They have McLaurin and Logan Thomas at TE and then a bunch of interchangeable nobodies.
Tyrod Taylor to Texans on a one year deal, heavy on the incentives.
Andy Dalton isn’t a surprise. He’s about the best they were going to do.
Seattle wasn’t going to part with Wilson and Chicago has limited ability to trade after Trubisky and Foles didn’t pan out and what they paid for Khalil Mack. Looking at the list of available free agents, Dalton is probably near the best of the bunch.
Expecting the Bears to do better is a lot like asking why, if they’re starving, they can’t eat cake.
I fully expect the Bears to draft a QB in the first round now, and probably trade up.
Why Dalton when they already had Foles? Is he even an upgrade?
They have to. Pace and Nagy aren’t going to save their jobs with Dalton. So once again we’ll watch Pace weaken the overall roster for the rookie QB he just has to have. 
I think the 2020 season gave Belichick some needed humility. I feel he had bought into his own myth too heavily and was convinced his coaching was so great that he could win championships regardless of what players he had. I feel he now realizes he needs something to work with.
They got him as a backup looks like. They’re clearly moving on from Trubisky.
It’s not like they think Andy Dalton is the long term solution. He’s on a one-year deal for backup money.
Meh, he always knew this, but he refuses to “overpay” (as he defines it) for anybody. And with a reduced cap, there are lots of bargains in free agency this year.
That, and the Patriots had the most COVID opt-outs last year, some of them key defensive players, which isn’t going to happen this year. Judging 2020 teams in a vacuum is kind of a mug’s game.
The Bears are totally fucked. But I’m glad this probably means the end of the Pace/Nagy regime, hopefully they don’t mortgage the future on draft day. But I figure there’s nothing as valuable as Wilson or Watson in the draft so the risk of a decade ruining trade is reduced which is good.
Going forward I don’t know who’s the starter, Foles or Dalton. On paper Trubisky is significantly better than both. Fans will revolt if we have to watch Foles throw the ball into the dirt for the first 4 games so Dalton is probably the leader in the clubhouse. Who knows, which guy will show up in practice/preseason?
With the 20th pick getting a starter-quality QB in the draft is pretty unlikely. We could trade up but that’d be expensive since we’ll probably need to be in the 5-10 range to land one of those second tier guys. And those second tier guys are pretty damn iffy. Justin Fields is probably the lottery ticket of the group but I don’t like what I’m seeing from him. I know everyone is shitting on Kyle Trask but if we landed him in the second round I’d call that the best case scenario.
Trubisky, for all his flaws, is better than either of these guys. The Bears could have locked him up for one more year and paid him about what they’re paying both of these schmoes combined. No, Mitch wasn’t the future, but Pace had a whole year to figure out his next move and this was the best he could do.
The really shitty part is that they still won’t be bad enough to get a top pick in 2022, and due to all the contract shuffling they won’t have much cap space, either.
By all accounts Nagy’s relationship with Mitch is totally toxic at this point. Which is a little weird since Mitch is basically a boy scout according to the media and his teammates. Before that was leaked I was all-in on the stick with Trubisky and rebuild through the draft philosophy. He wasn’t a train wreck in spite of the memeing we keep seeing.
But, I do believe the argument that Mitch is so limited mentally that Nagy’s offense never got a chance to develop and evolve. Getting him another QB who is a veteran and who can process the coverages and handle adjustments on the fly might help us see how big a problem Nagy himself is. Unfortunately both Foles and Dalton are really limited physically so this will be an entirely different type of impediment for Nagy’s system such as it is.
I’m totally out on Pace and Nagy, just like pretty much every other Bears fan, but if I really take a step back and try to be objective about it…the Bears have been an above average team (barely) with these guys at the helm. And the team was in dire straits when Pace took over. Maybe I’m rationalizing here, but things could be a lot worse. Unless of course you subscribe to the philosophy that there’s nothing worse than being perpetually mediocre in the NFL.