Antonio Brown and the NFL Start of Free Agency

Antonio Brownand the NFL Start of Free Agency are coming soon.  Antony Brown will technically be traded before a trade can be finalized.  The start of the 2019 Free Agency period is March 13th.  Brown of course is not a free agent.  He is an unhappy player that is looking for a new home.  His former team mate Bell is a free agent and it will be interesting to see where he ends up.    I remember the start of free agency back in the early 90’s.  It started a little slow due to teams not knowing how to approach it.  Lately it has become something that is fun to follow and very interesting.

NFL Free Agency Fun and Interesting

Unlike the NBA the free agency is not more exciting than the regular season.  It is exciting enough that it will get better headlines than the NBA.   With the start of the new NFL business year on March 13th at 4:00 PM eastern time.  Teams will be able to make official trades that they have made and free agents will officially be able to be signed.    I like that this  year and the last few years there has been more information available.   Before when they used to pretend that deals were not going on before the start of the year was just crazy talk.  Teams talk and get ready to do deals.  You know it is true so why try to hide it.

Can you Get Value

The big question for each team in free agency is will you be able to get a return.   If you have a player you want to trade and wants to be traded what are you going to be able to get in return.  On the other side of the deal.  What do you have to give up to get that player and will that player be able to be better than what you either had or could have gotten with the draft picks that you gave up.   It is a difficult question to answer.

Steelers Stange Doings Losing Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell

I still do not fully understand what happened with the Steelers.  They have (had) to of the top players at their position with Bell and Brown.  It was a smart move by the Steelers to not put the transition tag on Bell.  Just let him go and see what he can get on the open market.  You had your chance and blew it.  I am not even sure it was the contract offer the Steelers made.  I think that it was that Bell just did not want to play for the Steelers anymore.  What ever is going on there. Players are turning away from them.  That does not mean they will not be able to bring it back.  It may just be the personality of those players and the team did not fit.   With Brown It will be interesting to see what they get back for him.  People were thinking that it would be a first round pick.  I am not sure anymore.   It is starting too look like it will be a second rounder and maybe swapping a few picks in the later rounds.  At this point just getting something for him and getting his contract off the books is a win.

When your Trade is a Push

Already the Broncos have went out on a limb.  A limb that they are sawing off from the wrong side.  Not really sure what they were thinking on the Joe Flacco trade.  Other than Elway there are not a lot of people that think this has a great chance to succeed.   Many places are giving this trade a D+.  Sure that is fine.  I would give it an F.  I guess they only had to give up a late round pick to get him.  His stats were about the same as Keenums from last year.  Flacco has more experience so maybe it will work?  Nah I dont’ see it working out.  They are in rebuild mode now even if they don’t realize is and Flacco has one or two years left in his already not too impressive arm.  On the bright side they were able to cut their cap hit from Keenum by trading him to Washington.  So at least there is that for the Broncos.  Looks like they have their big win for the season already…  LOL

For the Redskins this was a trade they almost had to make.  Bad Luck with what happened with Alex Smith.  I really hope that he is able to come back and play someday but it was such a crazy injury that I am not sure he will ever be able to get back.  Keenum fits what they are looking to do.   It did not cost them much and they had to do something.  It really can’t make things worse for them.  Where I do not think the Broncos got better with the trade for Flacco the Redskins did get better with the trade for Keenum.

Set Up for the Draft

I hear some people say that the draft should happen before free agency.   I do not think they are correct.  The way it is set up now is how it should go.  Try to fill some holes now with either a trade or a free agent signing.  Then you know what you need to look for in the draft.  For some teams it does not matter they need a lot so they need both periods to go well.  What you can do is get certain parts of your team set so you can fill in the rest from the draft.  All of this is a crap shoot so it is difficult to say how it will turn out.  Last year Washington looked like they made the right choice.  Then a freak injury changed that.  It can really happen that quickly.

I am ready to see what happens on the 13th.  There will be a bunch of deals early and then we will wait for the rest to trickle in.   After this it is on to the draft.  The Steelers want to get the Antonio Brown deal in place by the end of the week.  We will see how that turns out.

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