How often do splashy NFL free agent signings pan out? Why big money doesn't always mean stardom

Few things are more exciting for NFL teams than landing a star free agent. It's cause for celebration among executives, coaches and fans alike. That first social media post hinting at the news? The official announcement? The photo op? The excited tweets from new teammates? It's literally in the name. Who doesn't want to get something for free?

It's fun, sure. But are these splashy moves always a good idea? How often do premium free agents really work out? In recent years, key signings have turned the tide for Super Bowl winners. Saquon Barkley and Zack Baun were superstars for the 2024 Eagles. Sam Darnold put together dominant stretches for the 2025 Seahawks. In the big picture, though, how often does a team sign a significant free agent, look back and say that it spent wisely?

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Today, I'll try to answer that question. I've gone back and looked at the top 50 free agents (by average annual salary) from each offseason between 2013 and 2022, giving us 500 players and plenty of time to see how they've panned out. With help from the free agent data compiled by Spotrac, I went through each player and evaluated how they performed versus the expectations that were set by their prior level of play and the contract they signed with their new team, determining whether those players lived up to the deal.

There are other interesting questions we can answer, too. Do certain types of players work out better than others? Are certain positions more likely to deliver free agent successes? Do younger players work out better than older ones? And at the very top of the market over that 10-season span, how did the highest-paid deals actually pan out? I'll try to answer all of those today.

Jump to:
How can we evaluate free agents?
How often do top free agents pan out?
What about the very best players?
Are certain positions more productive?
Do younger free agents work out more?
How do 30 free agents with big contracts stack up?

How I'm evaluating free agents

There's no perfect way to judge free agent performance in a league such as the NFL, where success is measured so many different ways across different positions. Merely surviving past the guaranteed years of a contract could be one measure of success, but shorter-term deals might mean just one year to begin with. Getting playing time is a positive sign, but in the case of these free agents, many of them are being signed and paid to start -- they're going to get opportunities to play even if they're not living up to expectations.

In the end, I trusted that the best way to judge these deals was to look back on a case-by-case basis, evaluate them in their individual context and give them a (completely arbitrary) score, running from 0 to 6. The goal was to grade each player in the context of what they were signed to be and how they ultimately performed versus those expectations. The hope for Tom Brady when he signed with the Buccaneers was understandably higher than what was expected of Brian Hoyer when he inked a deal with the Texans.

Things I considered here: How long were these players starting? If they had been a starter previously, did they live up to that level of play after accounting for aging curves (which are priced into the contracts)? If they were graduating from a rotational role into the starting lineup, did they then play at a starter level? And if they were being paid like a superstar at the top of their position's market, were they difference-makers?

In the end, each of those 500 players was assigned a numerical grade for their performance. To contextualize those, let's use a contract from this year's free agent class. Wan'Dale Robinson signed a four-year, $70 million contract with the Titans. He'll get paid $38 million guaranteed over the first two years of that deal, essentially locking the former Giants wideout in for two years as a starter, before the Titans will be able to go year-to-year in 2028 ($15 million) and 2029 ($17 million). This is a pretty standard deal for a top-50 free agent. Robinson currently has the 10th-largest average annual value of the offseason and the 23rd-largest AAV for any WR in football.

What would Robinson have to do to earn each number grade in our evaluation? Let's go from 6 to 0:

6: All-Pro-caliber superstar. At this high end, a player needs to perform like an unquestioned superstar for the vast majority (if not all) of his free agent deal, perennially competing for Pro Bowl and All-Pro honors despite being paid like something closer to a typical starter. Baun's performance on a one-year deal with the Eagles in 2024 would be a good example. Robinson would need to be posting 1,400-plus-yard seasons on a yearly basis to challenge for this grade. While he racked up 1,014 yards in his contract year, he averaged 616 per season over his four years in New York, so this would be a massive leap.

5: High-end starter who consistently exceeds his contract value. This might be more realistic. When you consider that there are plenty of talented wideouts on rookie deals, Robinson's AAV makes it so that he equates to a very high-end WR2, if not a low-end WR1. An efficient WR2 in an offense that throws at a league-average rate is going to rack up somewhere around 850-900 receiving yards in a solid season.

To earn a "5" grade, Robinson would have to consistently top 1,000 yards -- and approaching 1,200 -- per season. He would need to make a Pro Bowl or be in the discussion. He would need to stay healthy, given that injuries are the easiest way for free agents to disappoint. Robinson would need to play well enough that the Titans feel as if they got a bargain at $17.5 million annually and landed someone who could legitimately function as the WR1 in a good offense.

4: Steady starter who moderately exceeds expectations. There's something to be said for being a star, but if Robinson can consistently produce 1,000-yard seasons and stay on the field on a weekly basis, that can make the 25-year-old a valuable part of a successful offense. In this scenario, Robinson would need to be one of the best WR2s in football, occasionally push toward the WR1 ranks and play past the guaranteed years of his contract into Year 4, earning a new deal as a result of his performance.

3: Player who lives up to expectations. This is the average performance grade. The Titans are paying Robinson to be a very good WR2 over the next two years. If he delivers 850-900 receiving yards per season and stays healthy through those first two guaranteed seasons, Tennessee general manager Mike Borgonzi would have essentially gotten what he wanted. This sort of player typically stays on the roster for at least one year after their guaranteed money runs out.

Naturally, this changes based on contract value. Jaelan Phillips signed for $30 million per year with the Panthers, making him the highest-paid player in this free agent class and the eighth highest-paid edge rusher in football by AAV. While acknowledging that contracts to other players will push Phillips's AAV rank down a bit by 2027, the Panthers are essentially paying Phillips to be a healthy, Pro Bowl-caliber edge rusher on an annual basis. That's the baseline Phillips needs to hit to earn a "3" by this system.

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Cam Ward is building chemistry with Wan'Dale Robinson

Turron Davenport reports on Wan'Dale Robinson's introductory news conference with the Titans.

2. Player who disappoints. Here's where things start going south. There are plenty of midtier WR2 talents who don't go for what Robinson earned in free agency. Keenan Allen made $6.2 million last season with the Chargers; Jakobi Meyers earned $10.8 million between the Raiders and Jaguars. And with so many talented rookies coming out of college football on a yearly basis, teams can fire off draft picks and potentially land that sort of production for a fraction of what players such as Robinson earn on the open market.

There's nothing wrong with committing this sort of money to Robinson in the hopes of a more certain option than going to the draft, but there are a lot of ways it can go wrong. When a draft pick doesn't live up to expectations or gets hurt, the team's only out $2.5 million or so per year for a second-round pick or $1.2 million per year for a fourth-rounder. If Robinson is only a marginal receiver or misses meaningful time to injury, that's $17 million that could have gone elsewhere.

Free agents who score a "2" don't live up to what their new team expected. In this case, Robinson would fall out of the starting lineup, fail to consistently produce at the level of an above-average WR2 or suffer injuries that keep him from suiting up regularly. The Titans are paying Robinson for both certainty and upside. If they get neither, that won't be a great free agent signing.

1: Player who seriously underwhelms. Some free agents just turn out to be colossal mistakes. At wide receiver last year, Dyami Brown and Tutu Atwell both signed one-year deals for $10 million. Brown was a healthy scratch in the second half of the season for the Jaguars, while Atwell managed only six catches in 10 games. Neither player landed anywhere near as much money when they hit the market again this offseason.

At this tier, we're seeing players who miss most of their time under contract to injuries, players who were expected to start but got benched early in their tenures and guys who were cut with meaningful guaranteed money remaining on their deals. Robinson would need to be out of the lineup by the end of Year 1 or miss most of 2026 and 2027 with injuries to fall here.

0: Player who provides negligible or even negative value. Here's where it gets truly bleak. Did you sign a player to a premium salary and bench him by the midway point of his first year? Did he get released in a matter of weeks? Did he miss virtually all of his contract with serious injuries? And when he did play, did he perform at replacement level? This goes to players where the money a team shelled out delivered absolutely nothing. If Robinson's on another team by October or doesn't play again until 2028, he would be here. Thankfully, that's not very likely.

OK -- those are our potential grades for each deal. Now, let's run through what I found after looking at those 500 free agents and how the moves panned out.

How often do top free agents actually pan out?

Not as often as teams would like. The average grade for these 500 free agents landed at 2.26 -- closer to disappointing than average. Most players were either below average or lived up to expectations, but there were far more utter disasters than stunning breakouts, which makes sense; if a player's already being paid market value or better to start, it's going to be easier for them to come up short via injury or inconsistency than exceed expectations to play at a Pro Bowl-or-better level. And the vast majority of Pro Bowl-caliber talents never hit the open market.

The "6" grades over this decade are players who hit free agency under unique circumstances such as Trent Williams (held out for a year over medical concerns, was traded and got the right to hit free agency as part of the deal) and Trey Hendrickson (who had only one year of high-level play as a starter with the Saints before excelling in Cincinnati).

If you prefer to consider this as a binary question, my evaluations suggest there's a 41% chance that a typical top-50 free agent will produce a successful contract, either by living up to the expectations implied by the contract value or exceeding them. That feels about right. Free agents can still be valuable within that context, given that teams might not have access to similarly talented players via the draft or trades. And while rookie contract players are far more likely to produce surplus value than free agent additions, the latter can still generate outsized value, as the likes of Baun and Barkley did in 2024.

What about the tippy-top best players on the market?

If we split each year's top 50 into groups by average annual salary, the top free agents are actually worse, not better, than the players below them. In part, that's because expectations are higher. It's also because many of those contracts go to quarterbacks, and as I'll get to in a moment, free agency tends to be a very high-variance place to go for a starting quarterback.

Players in the bottom half of the top 50 both were more likely to succeed (grade of "3" or higher) and posted a higher average performance on their free agent deals than players in the top 10, top 20 or top half of those same classes. The differences aren't significant, but it does seem telling that there's no drop-off from the top of the class to the next tier or two down after adjusting for how much each group is getting paid. This seems to suggest that teams might be overconfident in their ability to sort through which free agents are worth prioritizing.

Are certain positions more productive than others?

While the sample gets small at certain positions -- particularly at running back -- there is a pretty consistent trend. Players who touch the ball fail most often, while players who have a more subtle impact on the game are more likely to deliver or exceed expectations.

Skill position players occupy the bottom four positions on the list, while safety, defensive tackle and interior offensive line (centers and guards) stood out as the most productive positions in free agency. I'll allow that it might be easier to judge skill positions because there are more tangible measures of their performance than guards or safeties, but it's also possible that teams are simply overpaying for players at the more exciting and notable positions.

This is a particularly brutal performance for running backs, but it's also a product of timing. Only 10 backs showed up in this dataset. (The only success was Lamar Miller, who was solid for the Texans before tearing an ACL.) Other backs made impacts after changing teams but didn't make enough money to show up in the top 50, including Mark Ingram's move to the Ravens in 2019. Since 2022, we've seen some very successful free agent signings at running back, most notably when Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry changed teams in 2024. From 2013 to 2022, though, it was a rough era for backs in free agency.

Quarterbacks weren't far off. By the nature of the position and some of the ill-fated decisions teams have made, their results tended to be more extreme. Because even backup quarterbacks make enough to land in the top 50 some years, the success rate here is boosted by players who were solid in a handful starts, including Teddy Bridgewater's run with the Saints and Nick Foles' two-year stint filling in for Carson Wentz with the Eagles.

Let's put that into perspective. We can compare players and their contracts across seasons by adjusting their salaries for cap inflation. Kirk Cousins' three-year, $84 million contract isn't the largest in raw value, but with Cousins making $28 million per year on a deal he signed in 2018, that figure represents 15.8% of the $177.2 million cap the league operated under that year. Cousins' deal is the largest cap-adjusted salary for any of the 500 signings in the dataset.

If we sort each position by those adjusted salaries, we can see whether the top of the market plays better at certain positions than others. Leaving running back aside because of the small sample, there's another interesting trend here. Let's compare the 15 highest-paid players at each position to the rest of the player pool at that position by their success rates.

At the skill positions, teams are usually better off going for options on less expensive deals. At the less appreciated spots, notably along the interior of the offensive and defensive lines, the premium players tended to be more successful. In part, that might be because teams are simply more willing to let high-end talents leave at those positions, whereas great quarterbacks and wide receivers are far less likely to ever make it to free agency in the primes of their careers. While there are exceptions, the Hall of Fame quarterbacks who changed teams in free agency were coming off serious injuries (Drew Brees, Peyton Manning), saw their performances dip dramatically (Kurt Warner) or switched at the very tail end of their careers (Tom Brady).

Do younger free agents work out more often than older ones?

Answering this question is complicated. The league already builds in what it believes to be aging curves at each position, which is why we see veterans such as Jamel Dean and Mike Evans sign smaller contracts in free agency than their recent play would suggest. Teams are paying for what they think players are going to do as opposed to what they've done, which is fair enough. But I've tried to keep that in mind as I evaluate those contracts.

While a young player getting a massive raise typically has to improve on his prior level of play to justify that new deal, veterans on their third or fourth contracts are already getting paid like they're about to decline. If they can just maintain their prior level of play, that should qualify as a success.

With that being said, younger free agents are still more productive and succeed more often than their older counterparts. I've rounded ages down to the closest full year to make evaluation simpler, but free agents who are at or entering their peak years (hitting free agency at ages 24-27) are better bets than players in their peak seasons (ages 28-30) or post-peak years (ages 31-plus), even after accounting for contract size.

There's really no drop-off from ages 28-30 to the 31-plus group, which might also be a product of selection bias. Players who are still getting paid top-50 free agent deals as they turn 31 or older are typically quarterbacks (who age slower than other positions) or true high-end talents (who might have slower aging curves than lesser players at their positions). Even so, some of those well-known talents on the wrong side of 30 can drop off quicker than the teams that sign them might think. I'll talk about a couple of those examples here.

Sorting 30 free agents with the biggest contracts from 2013 to 2022

Let's finish up by taking a look at the absolute cream of the crop. After adjusting everyone's average annual salary for the cap the year they signed, we can review the 30 biggest contracts in free agency over that 10-year span of 2013-22. While I've mostly dealt with big-picture looks at the player pool in this piece, here's a chance to see how those findings impacted some of the most prominent signings of that decade. I'll go from most expensive to least expensive, again adjusting for cap.

1. Kirk Cousins, QB, Minnesota Vikings (2018)
The deal: Three years, $84 million

While some of these deals with high average annual values don't have spectacular guarantees under the hood, Cousins' first contract with the Vikings was famously fully guaranteed. Having run through two franchise tags with Washington, Cousins was able to hit unrestricted free agency in the prime of his career. Entering his age-30 season, the Vikings fought off the Jets to sign Cousins to the largest deal of the specific decade we're evaluating.

The Vikings paid for good-to-great quarterback play and got more of the former than the latter. Cousins grew frustrating for Vikings fans who wanted something more at quarterback, but he was healthy for the vast majority of his time in Minnesota before tearing his right Achilles in his sixth and final year with the franchise. The Vikings needed to repeatedly restructure and extend Cousins to handle the cap issues caused by his deal, but he made three Pro Bowls in his six years with the team. He was about what the Vikings could have expected.

Grade: Average (3)

2. Ndamukong Suh, DT, Miami Dolphins (2015)
The deal: Six years, $114.4 million

Suh's free agency was a product of the old, predraft slotting collective bargaining agreement. Top-five picks in that era could land contracts at the top of the veteran market before ever stepping on the field, and in perennially drafting toward the top of the board, the Lions hit on Suh, receiver Calvin Johnson and quarterback Matthew Stafford in a four-year span. After years of cap gymnastics, the Lions ran out of runway and decided to keep Johnson and Stafford over Suh.

Suh signed a massive deal with the Dolphins, but after three first-team All-Pro appearances in his six years with the Lions, he didn't make it back to the top of the defensive tackle charts after leaving Detroit. Suh made one Pro Bowl in his three years with the Dolphins, with his sack total declining in each subsequent season. After his guaranteed money ran out, the Dolphins released Suh three years into that six-year pact. He was still a good player, but this deal paid him to be one of the best defenders in the NFL. Suh didn't get there in Miami.

Grade: Disappointing (2)

3. Tom Brady, QB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2020)
The deal: Two years, $50 million

The flag football quarterback? Yes, once upon a time, Brady was both a pro football player and a free agent. The Bucs signed Brady to a short-term deal after he left New England, and the results were excellent. Brady had some hiccups in Year 1, but the offense settled down as the season went along, concluding with a Super Bowl win. Brady then finished second in MVP balloting in Year 2, throwing for a career-high 5,316 yards and 43 touchdowns. The only reason he isn't in the very top tier is, well, he's Tom Brady. The expectations were pretty darn high!

Grade: Excellent (5)

4. Philip Rivers, QB, Indianapolis Colts (2020)
The deal: One year, $25 million

During that same 2020 offseason, Rivers also left the only franchise he had ever played for to jump to a new team. The Colts signed Rivers to a one-year deal as the latest in their series of Andrew Luck replacements, and Rivers lived up to his end of the bargain. He threw for 4,169 yards and 24 touchdowns, leading the Colts to a wild-card berth in the process. Rivers retired after the season before returning on a much smaller deal with the Colts last December.

Grade: Average (3)

5. Trent Williams, OT, San Francisco 49ers (2021)
The deal: Six years, $138.1 million

After sitting out the 2019 season in the hopes of leaving Washington, Williams was dealt to the 49ers in spring 2020. As part of the deal, the 49ers agreed to take the franchise tag off the table for Williams after the season. He had an excellent debut year in San Francisco, and when the Chiefs pushed to add Williams, the 49ers had to offer him more than $23 million per season to keep the star tackle.

While that move might have cost Williams a couple of Super Bowl rings, there's no arguing with what he has done in San Francisco. The future Hall of Famer made the Pro Bowl in each of his final seven seasons in Washington, but he had never been a first-team All-Pro at left tackle. He earned those honors in each of his first three seasons under this contract with the 49ers. It's hard for a player making this much money to drastically exceed expectations, but Williams qualifies.

Grade: Spectacular (6)

6. Nick Foles, QB, Jacksonville Jaguars (2019)
The deal: Four years, $88 million

On the other end of the spectrum, there's Foles, who had been a playoff hero for the Eagles during their run to the Super Bowl in 2017 and productive across seven starts between the regular season and playoffs in 2018. Wanting a quarterback who was familiar with John DeFilippo's scheme, the Jags signed Foles to a deal that guaranteed $45.1 million at signing.

Foles hit injured reserve after eight pass attempts in Week 1, and after he returned, he started three more games before being benched for Gardner Minshew. While the Jags were able to foist some of Foles' guarantees on the Bears after the year, they paid him $30.5 million for four starts -- all losses.

Grade: Disaster (0)

7. Brock Osweiler, QB, Houston Texans (2016)
The deal: Four years, $72 million

After backing up Peyton Manning and taking over as the starter in Denver during the second half of the 2015 season, Osweiler was benched for the legendary quarterback in the postseason. Suitably frustrated, Osweiler signed with the Texans in free agency. The 6-foot-7 passer threw more interceptions (16) than touchdowns (15) in his lone season as the starter in Houston. After the first year, the Texans sent a second-round pick to the Browns so they would eat the remaining $16 million on Osweiler's deal. That pick eventually turned into running back Nick Chubb.

Grade: Disaster (0)

8. Sam Bradford, QB, Arizona Cardinals (2018)
The deal: One year, $20 million

While Bradford had been productive for the Vikings in 2016, the oft-injured 2010 No. 1 draft pick missed virtually all of the 2017 season because of a knee injury. The Cardinals signed Bradford in 2018, but after they gave him a significant salary, they used their first-round pick on QB Josh Rosen. Bradford began the year as the starter, but late in the Week 3 loss to the Bears, coach Steve Wilks put in the rookie. Bradford was a healthy scratch over the rest of the season and never played another NFL snap. Josh, as it turned out, was their guy.

Grade: Disaster (0)

9. Olivier Vernon, Edge, New York Giants (2016)
The deal: Five years, $85 million

One year after signing Ndamukong Suh, the Dolphins let Vernon hit free agency. Having just turned 25, Vernon was an extremely young free agent at a premium position. And while he had never racked up 10 sacks or made it to a Pro Bowl, he had 36 quarterback hits the prior year, hinting that a dominant season or two could be in his future. The Giants took the plunge, and while Vernon compiled 22 sacks over three seasons in New York, he never hit superstardom and missed nine of 48 possible games.

The Giants traded Vernon to the Browns after three seasons in North Jersey for guard Kevin Zeitler. They paid for great and got pretty good.

Grade: Disappointing (2)

10. Teddy Bridgewater, QB, Carolina Panthers (2020)
The deal: Three years, $63 million

After impressing in five spot starts for the injured Drew Brees in 2019, the widely beloved Bridgewater earned a surprisingly large deal with the Panthers. While this was really only a one-year pact, he earned $23 million for a middling year as the starter in 2020. The Panthers ate an additional $7 million in 2021 to send him to the Broncos for a sixth-round pick. It was a disappointing run for Bridgewater in Carolina, but given what happened for the other quarterbacks who suited up for coach Matt Rhule with the Panthers, he's in good company.

Grade: Very disappointing (1)

11. Case Keenum, QB, Denver Broncos (2018)
The deal: Two years, $36 million

When Bridgewater suffered his career-altering knee injury in 2016, the Vikings acquired Bradford to take his place. With Bradford limited to two starts in 2017 by his own knee issues and Bridgewater still on the mend, the Vikings were forced to turn to a veteran journeyman in Keenum, who had the season of his life. The Vikings went 11-3 with Keenum as the starter, and he oversaw the Minneapolis Miracle in the postseason before the Vikings were knocked out of the playoffs by Nick Foles and the Eagles.

The Broncos signed Keenum as a short-term solution under center, and while this was really a one-year deal, they got the Keenum who had topped out as a backup for most of his career as opposed to the one who looked like a standout passer with Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen at wide receiver in Minnesota. Keenum threw 15 picks in 16 starts, moved to Chicago after the season and has started 12 games across five stops over the ensuing seven seasons. He's still in the league as the third-stringer behind Caleb Williams and Tyson Bagent in Chicago.

Grade: Disappointing (2)

12. Kenny Golladay, WR, New York Giants (2021)
The deal: Four years, $72 million

Some contracts are bad luck. This was a bad process. The wide receiver market cratered in 2021, and with Golladay lingering after an injury-impacted 2020 season, it seemed like he would have to settle for a one-year deal. Instead, Giants general manager Dave Gettleman guaranteed Golladay $28 million to sign with New York. Golladay caught 43 passes for 602 yards, scored one touchdown and took home more than $40 million from the Giants. He never surfaced again.

Grade: Disaster (0)

13. Von Miller, Edge, Buffalo Bills (2022)
The deal: Six years, $120 million

This one falls closer to the bad luck pile. Bills general manager Brandon Beane saw Miller as the last piece of the puzzle after Miller had an incredible playoff run with the Rams; Beane guaranteed him $45 million at signing to join Buffalo. That was a massive contract for a player who turned 33 soon after he signed, and Miller tore an ACL midway through his first season with the Bills. He was a complementary player in 2023 and 2024 and finished with 14 sacks in three years. It's a mild upset that owner Terry Pegula didn't blame the Miller signing on coach Sean McDermott during that fateful press conference in January.

Grade: Very disappointing (1)

14. Darrelle Revis, CB, New York Jets (2015)
The deal: Five years, $70.1 million

Revis will make another appearance later on this list, but this was his second stint with the Jets. After winning a Super Bowl with the Patriots, the Bag Hall of Famer returned to free agency and signed a massive deal with the Jets, earning $39 million in guarantees to rejoin his original team. Revis was good in Year 1 of that reunion tour in green, fell off badly in his second season and was cut before Year 3 -- even though the Jets still owed him $6 million in 2017.

Grade: Very disappointing (1)

15. Mike Wallace, WR, Miami Dolphins (2013)
The deal: Five years, $60 million

One of the many middle-round picks to excel for the Steelers at wide receiver, the speedy Wallace was allowed to hit free agency after the 2012 season, opening up a spot in Pittsburgh's starting lineup for Emmanuel Sanders. Wallace joined the Dolphins, but after averaging 1,010 receiving yards in four seasons with the Steelers, he averaged 896 in two seasons with the Dolphins. Paid like a true No. 1 receiver, Wallace was probably more of an upper-echelon No. 2. After two years and Wallace pulling himself from and refusing to return to a Week 17 loss in 2014, the Dolphins traded him to the Vikings for a swap of Day 3 picks.

Grade: Disappointing (2)

16. Josh Norman, CB, Washington (2016)
The deal: Five years, $75 million

Norman was one of the few players to be slapped with the franchise tag before having it pulled, allowing the opportunistic cornerback to hit free agency. Despite hitting the market weeks after it opened, he still landed a significant contract with Washington. Coming off a first-team All-Pro campaign, though, Norman didn't push for Pro Bowl honors, with Washington wavering on whether to have him shadow top receivers. Norman lasted four years in Washington without ever showing his best form from the Panthers days.

Grade: Disappointing (2)

17. Trey Flowers, Edge, Detroit Lions (2019)
The deal: Five years, $90 million

After four promising seasons with the Patriots, Flowers looked like he could be on the cusp of breaking out as one of the league's best pass rushers. Matt Patricia put an end to that by signing Flowers to be part of the former Patriots brigade in Detroit. After a seven-sack, 21-knockdown season in his first year with the Lions, Flowers was limited to 14 games over his two subsequent seasons in Detroit. The Lions were hoping for double-digit sacks from Flowers, and they got 10.5 -- spread over three years.

Grade: Very disappointing (1)

18. Malik Jackson, DT, Jacksonville Jaguars (2016)
The deal: Six years, $85.5 million

Jackson was coming off an impressive postseason during Denver's run to the Super Bowl in 2015, but even Jaguars fans had to admit that this was an enormous contract for a player who hadn't been seen as one of the league's great interior linemen before that playoff run. Jackson managed 14.5 sacks and 30 knockdowns over his first two seasons, with the 2017 arrival of Calais Campbell taking some of the load off him. Jackson was done in Jacksonville after three years, earning one Pro Bowl along the way. He wasn't as good as he looked alongside star edge rushers Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware in Denver, but Jackson was a very good defensive tackle with the Jags.

Grade: Average (3)

19. Bud Dupree, Edge, Tennessee Titans (2021)
The deal: Five years, $82.5 million

While it had taken Dupree some time to get going as the latest edge rusher off the Steelers' assembly line, the 2015 first-round pick seemed to take a turn toward the top of the position over his last two years in Pittsburgh, racking up 19.5 sacks and 32 knockdowns. Coming off an ACL tear suffered in December 2020, though, it was surprising to see the Titans pay this much to sign a player without elite-level production in his past. Dupree played 22 games over two years with the Titans, with then-GM Jon Robinson allocating $33.9 million for seven sacks.

Grade: Very disappointing (1)

20. C.J. Mosley, LB, New York Jets (2019)
The deal: Five years, $85 million

Mosley's contract was the Tyler Linderbaum deal of its time, as his $17 million salary was a 26% jump at the top of the linebacker market, which had previously topped out at $13.5 million per year. The Jets were paying Mosley to be a perennial Pro Bowler, something he had done four times in five years with the Ravens. That didn't happen in New York. Mosley played just two games in his first two seasons with the Jets, as a groin injury cost him most of 2019 before he opted out of the 2020 season during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mosley was healthy for the three ensuing years, but he managed one Pro Bowl across five seasons with the Jets.

Grade: Disappointing (2)

21. Sammy Watkins, WR, Kansas City Chiefs (2018)
The deal: Three years, $48 million

As the Chiefs prepared to welcome second-year quarterback Patrick Mahomes to the starting lineup on a full-time basis, signing Watkins seemed like the move to put their offense over the top. With Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce and Kareem Hunt all occupying defenders, Watkins saw a steady diet of single coverage. After a disappointing season with the Rams, though, Watkins didn't live up to expectations in Kansas City, with injuries limiting him to 34 of 48 possible games.

The 2014 Bills first-rounder compensated by excelling in the postseason. Watkins averaged 47.4 receiving yards in the regular season with the Chiefs and 79.5 yards per contest in the playoffs. His 38-yard catch in the fourth quarter set up the go-ahead touchdown for the Chiefs to win their first Super Bowl of the Mahomes era against the 49ers, so while Watkins was never a No. 1 receiver or close during his time with the Chiefs, the playoff production helps shade his grade higher.

Grade: Average (3)

22. Darrelle Revis, CB, New England Patriots (2014)
The deal: One year, $12 million

One of the great one-year signings in NFL history. Revis was coming off an ill-fated trade to Tampa Bay, where he had been recovering from a torn ACL and was cut after just one season. He rebuilt his value by signing to play for Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who used Revis as the focus of a defense that majored in man coverage. Revis was a first-team All-Pro and won a Super Bowl in his lone season with the Pats before reuniting with the Jets.

Grade: Excellent (5)

23. Calais Campbell, Edge, Jacksonville Jaguars (2017)
The deal: Four years, $60 million

There were fears that longtime Cardinals tackle Campbell, then 31, might have had his best days behind him when he signed in Jacksonville. Nearly a decade later, Campbell just completed his 18th NFL season. Signed to be a difference-maker and leader on the interior, he immediately helped fuel a defense-led turnaround for the Jags, who made the playoffs in his first year with the team. After three consecutive second-team All-Pro nods before joining Jacksonville, Campbell's 14.5-sack season made him a first-team All-Pro for the first and only time in 2017. He made three Pro Bowls in three years with the Jaguars before heading to Baltimore.

Grade: Excellent (5)

24. Mike Glennon, QB, Chicago Bears (2017)
The deal: Three years, $45 million

It felt like we were on a good run for a minute there! Along with Campbell, the highest average salary in the 2017 free agent class went to Glennon, who had shown some promise in 18 starts over four years with the Bucs. Bears GM Ryan Pace established the playbook Terry Fontenot would later follow in Atlanta by signing Glennon to a significant deal before using his first-round pick on another quarterback in Mitchell Trubisky. The Bears paid Glennon $16 million for four starts before turning to the rookie.

Grade: Disaster (0)

25. Christian Kirk, WR, Jacksonville Jaguars (2022)
The deal: Four years, $72 million

Trevor Lawrence needed receivers, but this was a colossal deal for a player who lined up primarily in the slot and might have been trade fodder for the Cardinals before a 982-yard season in 2021. This signing inspired concerns that the Jaguars ruined the wide receiver market in the process.

Kirk got the last laugh in his first year with the Jaguars, uncorking 1,108 yards as Lawrence's favorite receiver. He remained efficient during his time with the Jags, but the problem quickly became injuries, as Kirk was limited to 20 of 34 games over the two ensuing seasons. He averaged 758 receiving yards over his three seasons in Jacksonville, which was probably short of what the Jaguars needed to justify Kirk's deal. But this also turned out better than many -- myself included -- believed it would go.

Grade: Disappointing (2)

26. Za'Darius Smith, Edge, Green Bay Packers (2019)
The deal: Four years, $66 million

The Packers made twin signings on the edge in 2019, signing Za'Darius Smith away from the Ravens and Preston Smith from Washington. I thought this was a big investment for a player who had 18.5 sacks over four seasons with the Ravens, but Smith quickly proved me wrong. He had 13.5 sacks in his first year with the Packers and earned Pro Bowl honors in each of his first two years with the team. Smith then missed virtually the entire 2021 season because of a back injury before leaving Green Bay. While that didn't make for an ideal ending, he was good enough in Years 1 and 2 to make this an easy win for Brian Gutekunst & Co.

Grade: Impressive (4)

27. Trent Brown, OT, Oakland Raiders (2019)
The deal: Four years, $66 million

In another example of the Patriots getting value on a player before some other team gave him a much larger deal, Bill Belichick traded a third-round pick to the 49ers for Brown and a fifth-round selection in 2018. Brown would have played right tackle, but when rookie Isaiah Wynn tore an Achilles before the season, Brown moved to left tackle and excelled. The Raiders signed the 6-foot-8 Brown to a massive contract, but injuries limited him to 16 games over two seasons before he was traded back to the Patriots for a swap of Day 3 picks.

Grade: Very disappointing (1)

28. Joe Thuney, G, Kansas City Chiefs (2021)
The deal: Five years, $80 million

Thuney was the fallback addition for the Chiefs when they missed out on Trent Williams, and while Williams was excellent in San Francisco, Thuney wasn't far behind in Kansas City. While his tenure ended with the star guard playing out of position at left tackle for the Chiefs in the Super Bowl loss to the Eagles, Thuney was an ever-present and essential player on the interior of the Chiefs' offensive line. He missed a total of two regular-season games (and two playoff games) over five seasons and was a first-team All-Pro three times before being dealt to the Bears for a fourth-round pick.

Grade: Spectacular (6)

29. Nate Solder, OT, New York Giants (2018)
The deal: Four years, $62 million

The Patriots traded for Brown and drafted Wynn because they lost Solder, Tom Brady's longtime left tackle, to the Giants in free agency. Above average and reliable in New England, Solder was paid like a top-of-the-market left tackle in free agency. He wasn't really that guy in New York, spending two years on the left side before sitting out the 2020 season during the COVID-19 pandemic and finishing up his career with a lone year at right tackle. The Giants paid over the odds to sign Solder given his résumé with the Patriots, but it wasn't a disaster, either.

Grade: Disappointing (2)

30. Chandler Jones, Edge, Las Vegas Raiders (2022)
The deal: Three years, $51 million

This signing of a former Patriots player was a disaster. The Raiders rode their luck into a playoff berth in 2021, convinced themselves they were good and hired Josh McDaniels as their head coach. The former (and now current) Patriots coordinator traded two high picks for receiver Davante Adams and signed Jones as one of the many former Pats who made their way to Vegas. Jones had generally been healthy and very productive with the Cardinals, with 71.5 sacks in 84 games.

At 32, though, Jones was a curious signing for a Raiders team that didn't have enough young talent. He managed 4.5 sacks in 15 games in Year 1, then had a falling out with the organization as part of an off-field crisis and was released. Jones was paid nearly $26 million for those 4.5 sacks, although he did catch the inexplicable lateral from Jakobi Meyers that swung the most memorable victory of the McDaniels era, scoring his second pro touchdown in the process.

Grade: Disaster (0)

In all, our top 30 averaged 2.2 points, with as many disasters (six) as successes. While we didn't include recent classes, if we adjust salaries for the 2026 cap, there are four players who would have been in the same financial ballpark as these notable signings. Jaelan Phillips, Alec Pierce, Trey Hendrickson and Tyler Linderbaum are all earning a significant portion of the league's $301.2 million salary cap. History tells us those deals are far more likely to disappoint than they are to deliver outsized performance, but that's never going to stop a team from pursuing a player it believes to be an exception.

I can (and have tried) to give you all the data, but ask the Seahawks how they feel about Sam Darnold right now. Organizations know in the abstract that free agency is a dangerous game, but the upside of landing the right guy is always going to compel teams to take shots.