NFL free agency opens next Tuesday at 4pm ET. Players will get richer. Fan will get too excited. This year will be a little different as agents can start negotiating with teams this Saturday, three days early. They can't sign a contract until Tuesday but they can come to an "agreement." This new twist was added to get rid of the ever present tampering. Players had been signing with new teams moments after the opening bell. Something shady had to be going on to hammer out an agreement that fast. This new twist hasn't slowed anything. There's been several mentions of tampering since the scouting combine. Anyway, now teams and agents can do some some legal tampering a few days before signing day. That should be interesting.
Free agency rarely brings the impact that teams and fans expect. Everybody wants the stars but the stars rarely remain stars with their new team. Defensive end Mario Williams was the big fish last year. Buffalo landed him and got little in return. A new coaching staff could change things for Williams and the Bills this year. The high-priced talent that free agency brings rarely puts a team over the top. Reggie White and Deion Sanders certainly did that in the early days of free agency. Sanders did it twice. Shannon Sharpe provided a little pop to a plodding offense in Baltimore. That helped bring a championship. Drew Brees certainly turned the fortunes around in New Orleans. Some teams likely regret it now, Miami, but Brees wasn't getting a lot of calls from teams when he was looking for a team. A significant shoulder injury was mostly to blame for that. Still, Brees wasn't exactly a star in San Diego. The Chargers were so thrilled with him that they had spent a ton to add Philip Rivers in the draft. Brees became a star in New Orleans and is still writing one of the few free agency success stories. One of my favorite free agency stories is that of Minnesota Vikings cornerback Antoine Winfield in 2004. He'd just finished his rookie contract with the Bills and was looking for that big second contract as a free agent. His first visit was with the New York Jets. Short of an actual kidnapping, teams do all that they can to keep a player from leaving their facility. The Jets were pulling out all the stops and thought that they had Winfield. Most in the media were calling it a done deal. The Jets had even scheduled a press conference. Fortunately for the Vikings Winfield wasn't as sold on the Jets as the Jets were sold on him. Vikings head coach Mike Tice arranged for a private plane to whisk Winfield away from New York and to Minneapolis. Winfield never left Minneapolis. Still hasn't. Because of this story I've never quite believed any report of a signing until there's actually a signing.
The problem with free agency is that the expectations are so high. Every new player, especially the big name players, are supposed to be the new team's savior. He's always the missing piece. The money that is usually involved brings much of the attention. It's often a bidding war and the winning team has to overspend. The spotlight is always on the new, rich guy. There's almost no way that he can live up to these expectations. Even a good season will be a disappointment. It has to be a great season. A great season that ends with the player holding a Lombardi Trophy. Teams are better served building through the draft. I've always liked the way that Bill Polian built the Indianapolis Colts. Granted, having Peyton Manning leading the team fills a bunch of holes. The Colts rarely played around with free agency. Polian built through the draft and did a good job of keeping the team's players. The Colts had great, sustained success for over a decade. It's an approach favored by Vikings general manager Rick Spielman. He wants to build through the draft and be smart in free agency. It's always fun to add the big name players but it's always better to not have to add them . Free agency should be for plugging holes not building a team.
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