NFL teams can of course “win” free agency by bidding high on the biggest-ticket players and having those players perform as expected. But for every one of those positive examples, it seems that there’s at least two cases in which big-money signings go south. More often than not, teams that come out of free agency with the best possible cost/benefit ratio are the ones that are able to identify under-the-radar players who fit their specific schemes and coaching staffs.
Sometimes, those players are underrated because it just took a while for the proverbial light to go on. Other times, it is that example of a player’s skill set finally fitting into the ideal playbook. And then, there are those times when a player who has previously disappointed signs on the cheap somewhere and performs to his potential both physically and personally.
Whatever the reasons, here are 11 upcoming free agents that could make their current teams — or their new teams — very happy for the money spent.
Ryan Tannehill, QB, Tennessee Titans
The NFL has one question for Ryan Tannehill as it heads into the 2020 league year: Was 2019 a fluke, or is this what we can expect from now on?
Here’s what we know: When he took the Titans’ starting job from an ineffective Marcus Mariota in Week 7, Tannehill had thrown 123 touchdowns and 75 interceptions in a decent, but hardly sparkling, six-year tenure with the Dolphins. But something clicked with Tannehill and Tennessee offensive coordinator Arthur Smith (who you should put on your short lists of future head coaches). The Titans were 2-4 after Mariota’s last start, having scored seven total points in their last two games. They then finished the season 9-7 and made it all the way to the AFC Championship game with Tannehill, who led the league in yards per attempt, adjusted yards per attempt, yards per completion, net yards per attempt, adjusted net yards per attempt, and quarterback rating.
Tannehill finished ninth in Football Outsiders’ DYAR (season-cumulative opponent-adjusted efficiency metrics) among quarterbacks, and fifth in DVOA (FO’s per-play opponent-adjusted efficiency metrics) when he had finished 31st and 32nd in those ratings the year before. Tannehill also added a much-needed deep passing element to Tennessee’s offense, completing 26 of 65 passes of 20 or more air yards for 611 yards, five touhdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 108.0. Only Lamar Jackson and Kirk Cousins threw more play-action touchdowns than Tannehill’s 11, and when you add in his athleticism to break the pocket, he certainly looks like a complete quarterback, however he got here.
The tape confirms that Tannehill has become a nuanced player, expert in many of the required facets of the quarterback position, Those who argue against his ascent using the one-year wonder theory may be missing the point — every player is different, and not all are subject to the confines of historical modeling. Tannehill is a system quarterback like every other quarterback, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t arrived.
Kenyan Drake, RB, Arizona Cardinals
The Dolphins of the Adam Gase era (2016-2018) could generally be counted on to feature the wrong players in key roles, and when the right players were put on the field, they weren’t always given optimal opportunities to display their skill sets. Drake, selected in the third round of the 2016 draft out of Alabama, is but one of these stories. In 3 1/2 seasons with Miami, he gained 1,532 yards on 333 carries with a 4.6 yards-per-carry average and nine touchdowns. The post-Gase Dolphins traded him to Arizona in late October for a conditional sixth-round pick, at which point Drake caught fire. In just eight games for a Cardinals offense that was still finding its way under first-year head coach Kliff Kingsbury and rookie quarterback Kyler Murray, Drake gained 643 yards on 123 carries with a 5.2 YPC and eight rushing touchdowns.
In Weeks 9-17 of the 2019 regular season, Drake tied with Washington’s Adrian Peterson, Oakland’s Josh Jacobs, Buffalo’s Devin Singletary, and Tennessee’s Derrick Henry with eight runs of 15 or more yards, ranking fourth in the league over that span of time. Drake’s 646 yards on those long runs was sixth-best in the league. He also averaged 2.77 yards after contact per carry, and broke 25 total tackles as a rusher and receiver, per Pro Football Focus. Drake is a balanced, compact runner with one-cut speed and impressive acceleration. The Cardinals would be wise to re-sign him, but Drake will make any running back room better if he’s given the opportunity.
Emmanuel Sanders, WR, San Francisco 49ers
Traded from the Broncos to the 49ers halfway through the 2019 season, Sanders proved that he’s a consistent receiver in whatever offense you give him. He caught 71 passes for the Broncos in 2018, and matched that total (including the postseason) for Denver and San Francisco in 2019. From Week 8 through the Super Bowl for the 49ers, Sanders caught 41 balls for 573 yards and three touchdowns, with 14 yards per reception and just one drop.
Sanders isnn’t the flashiest guy on the field, and he will be 33 when the 2020 season starts. But as a possession receiver who absolutely understands how to exploit coverage to all areas of the field, he’d be a fine addition to any roster. This 75-yard Week 13 touchdown catch against the Saints, in which he demolishes New Orleans’ entire safety rotation with his route cunning, is an excellent example.
Breshad Perriman, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Before the 2019 season, you’d be forgiven for applying the “bust” label to Perriman, who the Ravens selected in the first round of the 2015 draft. He missed his entire rookie year due to injury and caught just 43 passes on 101 targets for 576 yards and three touchdowns for the Ravens over two seasons before he was released. The Redskins and Browns gave him short-term tries (well, the Redskins gave him five days and the Browns gave him most of the 2018 season) before he signed a one-year, $4 million with the Buccaneers in March, 2019. Perriman got off to a slow start in Bruce Arians’ offense, but finished the 2019 season with three straight 100-yard receiving games.
Perriman also was finally able to show some of his former 4.3 speed at 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds (why he was so highly-coveted in the first place), catching 11 passes of 20 or more air yards on 28 targets for 335 yards and three touchdowns. Moreover, Perriman — who used to have a pronounced problem with drops — mishandled just one pass in 2019, and he turned himself into a pretty decent contested-catch receiver. System and coaching will be of paramount importance to Perriman’s successful future, but it was nice to see the light go on for a short time.
Joe Thuney, G, New England Patriots
There is consistency, there is alpha consistency, and then, there is what Joe Thuney has been to the Patriots’ offensive line over the last two seasons. During New England’s run to a Super Bowl title over the 2018 season, Thuney did not allow a single sack — including his matchups against Aaron Donald as seen above — and he hasn’t allowed a sack in 10 post-season starts.
After allowing 10 total sacks and 95 total pressures in his first two regular seasons of 2016 and 2017, Thuney hit a new level, allowing one total sack and 43 total pressures in 2,572 total snaps. Technically proficient in any blocking scheme (the Patriots generally switch it up pretty evenly between gap ans zone blocking), Thuney would be a major component in any offensive line he joins. He’s not the biggest guard at 6-foot-5 and 308 pounds, but he has an excellent understanding of leverage and blocking responsibilites both at the line of scrimmage and when asked to head to the second level.
Dante Fowler Jr., EDGE, Los Angeles Rams
Selected third overall by the Jaguars in the 2015 draft, Fowler put up reasonably consistent edge production for 2 1/2 years in Jacksonville, though in no way did that production match his draft status. Fowler’s offseason exploits also put serious question marks around his ability to handle things. Fowler fell out of favor with Jacksonville’s front office early in the 2018 season, with just 117 pass-rushing snaps over the first eight games, and then, he was traded to the Rams in October. While he finished the 2018 season in Super Bowl LIII, he amassed just 30 total pressures in Wade Phillips’ defense, which again spoke to an underperforming career.
Then, the 2019 season happened, and Fowler seemed to become the player everybody wanted him to be. He put up 11.5 sacks and 67 total pressures, and that latter number tied him with Philadelphia’s Brandon Graham for 12th in the NFL among edge defenders. Capable of everything from quick edge pressured to stunting inside through open gaps, Fowler won’t come into 2020 with a perfect resume based on his past, but he has certainly established himself — finally — as one of the better and more underrated generators of pressure in the league today.
D.J. Reader, DL, Houston Texans
The Texans have nearly $54 million in cap space after announcing that they’ll let cornerback Johnathan Joseph try free agency, but with Joseph and Bradley Roby as free agents, the Texans also need almost every component of a new secondary — which they would likely need even if Joseph and Roby were to re-sign. That doesn’t likely leave a lot of room elsewhere, which could price Houston out of Reader, who they stole with a fifth-round pick in the 2016 draft. The Clemson alum has just 6.5 sacks over a four-year NFL career, which shows you precisely how incomplete sacks are when determining the ultimate value of a defensive lineman — especially an interior defensive lineman.
Reader had 36 total pressures in the regular and post-season, and he was one of the more astute and productive run-stopping interior linemen in the NFL from the nose tackle and three-tech positions. At 6-foot-3 and 347 pounds, Reader may be built like a fire hydrant, but he has the short-area speed, quickness through the gaps, hand-fighting ability, and penetrative force to be a dominant addition to any defensive front. Spotrac estimates that Reader could get a deal that averages nearly $12 million per month based on market value, and that’s not out of the question at all.
Cory Littleton, LB, Los Angeles Rams
Given the increasing use of nickel and dime sets as base defenses in the NFL, and the corresponding increasing need for linebackers who can roam the entire field in both run-stopping and coverage roles, Rams linebacker Cory Littleton is hitting the open market at exactly the right time. Last season, the Rams played a dime+ defense, with six or more defensive backs on the field, on 41% of their defensive snaps, ranking third in the NFL. Littleton had 561 coverage snaps, which means that he was the lone linebacker on the field for a lot of those plays.
As Pro Football Focus points out, Littleton’s six interception are second only to Atlanta’s Deion Jones (seven) among qualifying linebackers who entered the league just in 2016. Littleton also has the 2nd most forced incompletions (16) and is tied for second with the fewest missed tackles (four). NFL teams will go high on college linebackers like Clemson’s Isaiah Simmons and LSU’s Patrick Queen when considering these types of skill sets, but with Littleton, some team is going to get a guy who’s already succeeded in that paradigm at the highest level.
Tre Boston, S, Carolina Panthers
One of the biggest personnel mysteries in the NFL today is how Boston has moved from the Panthers to the Chargers to the Cardinals and back to the Panthers on a series of one-year deals when he’s consistently proven to be one of the NFL’s most effective deep third safeties. Boston has no known personal dings, and he’s been remarkably consistent as a player in the toughest possible situation, moving from scheme to scheme year to year. He’s never allowed an opponent passer rating above 76.3, he has 13 interceptions to six touchdowns allowed over the last four seasons, and he has given up just 41 catches on 85 targets over that four-year stretch.
We’ve already discussed Ryan Tannehill’s great 2019 season; here’s one instance where Boston used his veteran acumen to fool Tannehill into an interception when the Panthers and Titans faced off in a Week 9 matchup Carolina won, 30-20.
Tannehill thinks he can fit this throw in to receiver Kalif Raymond past cornerback Ross Cockrell, and clearly he thinks Boston is going to stay high. But Boston does a brilliant job of timing and jumping the route. Tannehill may have thought this was a standard two-deep look because of the static safeties through his drop, but Boston played this more as a Quarters (Cover-4) responsibility by keying on the slot receiver’s release and driving down. Boston just delayed it to great effect. Tannehill also may have expected Raymond to play this more as an in-cut across Boston’s face.
The more you watch Boston play, the more the league’s inability to lock him down to a multi-year deal makes little sense. Perhaps this is the offseason for that to change.
Anthony Harris, S, Minnesota Vikings
It’s not that people in the NFL don’t know how valuable Harris is as a back-third defender — Spotrac has Harris getting a five-year deal at around $70 million out of free agency, which would put him near the top of the per-year market for his position. But there aren’t enough people in the general populace who understand what a great player Harris has become. Harris was the only player in the NFL last season with seven interceptions, and he allowed no touchdowns, with 14 catches allowed on 20 targets, 164 yards, and an opposing quarterback rating of 55.0. Whenever you’ve got a guy who picks off half as many passes as he allows in completions, that’s a problem for every opposing offense.
You want to watch the tape extra-carefully with safeties to make sure they’re not products of their cornerbacks or there schemes, and two things stand out with Harris: How infrequently he was out of posotion, and how he would extend to make plays other safeties just can’t. His interception of Philip Rivers in Week 15 is an ideal example.
At the snap, Harris appears to have his full attention on tight end Hunter Henry. But as he’s backpedaling, he’s also focused on deep post receiver Mike Williams, who is running out of trips from the other side. With great speed, excellent anticipation and perfect timing, Harris peels off and jumps the post for an impressive interception.
This is what Harris’ next team will get in free agency unless the Vikings find a way to re-sign him (not likely with their current cap situation), and he’ll be worth every penny of that new contract.
Devin McCourty, S, New England Patriots
McCourty was outstanding throughout the 2019 season as the Patriots put one of the better secondaries in NFL history on the field, but boy, he was really something else at the start of New England’s 2019 campaign. McCourty had interceptions in the first four games of the season, and when he got his fifth in Week 7, he had allowed just just five catches. Yes, the Pats had faced some weak offenses to start the season, but the sheer statistical rarity of a defensive player taking away as many passes as catches allowed over nearly half a season is simply ridiculous. McCourty didn’t have another interception after Week 7, but that’s partially because he was targeted just 21 times after that. On 624 coverage snaps last season, he allowed 19 catches on 31 targets for 130 yards, one touchdown, those five picks, and an opponent passer rating of 41.8.
The perfect Belichick-style defender, McCourty has played everything from outside cornerback to slot defender to deep safety since the Patriots selected him with the 27th overall pick in the 2010 draft. The franchise rewarded him with a five-year, $47 million deal in 2015, and it’s not at all out of the question for McCourty to end his career in Foxboro. But other teams in need of top-shelf deep-third help should be all over his soon-to-be free-agent status.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”
