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The truth about the Michael Vick contract is that the Eagles can not be viewed as a penny-pinching, financially prudent organization anymore.  If that was the case, there is simply no way a contract like this could have been given to a player like Vick.  The Eagles are going for it.

Vick’s contract comes with significant downside, not in terms of the guaranteed money, but with the fact that there is hardly any way the Eagles can get value on the contract.  They have plenty of flexibility as an organization, but since Vick will be paid like a top five quarterback for the length of the contract, he will not be able to outperform his deal as he did for the contract he signed in 2009.  The Eagles will only hope for some stability at the position over the next three years, and they’ll be paying almost all of their available salary cap space for that stability.  After just two years, Vick’s contract becomes a series of three one year options in practice: the Eagles can get rid of him at any time after the 2012 season, when Vick will be 32.

When I cross reference this with my own projections for the Eagles roster, the structure of the deal makes complete sense.  The Eagles figure to peak as a team in 2012: when any of their acquisitions from this offseason who provide value will still be in their primes, and under contract.  Realistically, 2010 was already the peak of Vick’s career, and because the Eagles were going to be tethered to him in 2011, there is no realistic outcome (including season ending injury) where the Eagles were going to be in position after the 2011 season to say, “thanks Mike Vick, but we’re moving on.”  The structure of this deal reflects this reality.  Michael Vick is the Eagles starting quarterback through 2012.  After that, it’s based on performance.

Now, Vick’s performance at the tail end of 2010 has to be worrisome.  There is no way the Eagles front office could look at the tape of the Vikings game at Lincoln Financial Field last December and think that the quarterback position will never be an issue so long as Vick is around.  He was far better against the Packers in the playoffs, but was still significantly outplayed by Aaron Rodgers.  Vick isn’t on the same level as Rodgers, and it’s probably optimistic to expect him to perform above Drew Brees and Matt Ryan and return to the pro bowl in 2011 or 2012.  But the Eagles aspirations for the next two years has to be viewed as “at least one super bowl championship” and the incentives in Vick’s contract explicitly reflect those goals.

Vick is being paid in line with his abilities for the next two years, and after that, he would need to exceed expectations to remain the Eagles quarterback through 2015.  The problem with the deal, if there is one, is the fact that the Eagles are going to have to move money around in the 2013 league year to fit under the cap, and that will force them to decide at that point where Vick fits in their plans going forward.  Before that, the deal is rather affordable.

Even if the Eagles manage to “win” value in the early part of the deal (they save some money over having to franchise Vick again in 2012, though they lose flexibility if Vick struggles), Vick is likely to make that value back on the other end.

To say this is a good deal for the Eagles ignores the risk in tethering an organization to Michael Vick, the player.  So I won’t say the Eagles just made a great deal.  But a break-even, fair outcome is far more likely than not.  So long as Vick is really an improved player, and his gains in 2010 were not a total mirage, Vick would have to undergo a sharp and unexpected injury-forced decline for the Eagles to not receive at least two years of starter value out of this contract, which is exactly what they are on the hook for with Vick signing this deal.  As the Eagles correctly surmise in the wake of the Kevin Kolb trade, the Eagles don’t have a good plan B on the roster if the worst case scenario with Vick becomes a reality, and there is hardly a reasonable outcome where Philadelphia has to eat money on this deal.

So while the Eagles are breaking the “financially prudent” mold by paying Michael Vick big money to be their quarterback instead of cheaping out and keeping him around on a series of franchise tenders, this is really more in the mold of the team’s other deals.  The 5-year, $60 million contract the Eagles gave to Nnamdi Asomugha is really a better contract for the player than this Vick deal.  Vick’s contract isn’t nearly as long, and contains similar guaranteed money to Asomugha, and Nnamdi is more likely to see the whole deal than Vick.  The Eagles have plenty of outs in this contract after year two.  And it fits their organizational model for contention as well as Vick does as their quarterback.

In other words, it’s a fair deal with limited upside to the team and plenty of accountability on the end of the player.

If I’d had made a wager a couple weeks ago, I would have guessed that the lockout and shutdown of offseason NFL activities would have locked down the movement of NFL centers, at least for this year.  Compared to other positions on the OL, center is a recognition position, where the player manning the position has to be sharp mentally, if not physically.

That ended up not being the case.  Four teams participated in a game of center roulette, more than I can remember in any other year.  The Redskins and Seahawks promoted from within, making six teams with center “upgrades”.  Lets take an in look at the four players that moved.

Out: Rich Seubert and Shaun O’Hara, New York Giants

Seubert and O’Hara both ended the 2010 season on injured reserve for the Giants.  Their likely inability to pass physicals with the Giants plus the overall age of the unit made them easy targets for decreasing the Giants cap obligation in 2010, making the most out of a bad situation.  The Giants promoted from within on the left side of their line, but went outside the organization to replace their center.  Part of the reason was obvious: O’Hara and Seubert were one and two on the Giants depth chart at center the last few years.  There was no replacement waiting in the wings.

David Baas: San Francisco to New York

Baas was drafted in the second round in the 2004 NFL draft, just a couple of picks after the Giants took Chris Snee: in a nearby world, Bass would have been a Giant from the beginning.  He was the best center on the market, and it makes sense that the Giants would act quickly to poach him from the 49ers.  Baas was expected to resign with the 49ers, but the Giants had a need, and this proves that some organizations near the top of the NFL totem poll can recover quickly from unfortunate situations.  Other teams will start Jonathon Goodwin because they have no other choice.

Jonathon Goodwin: New Orleans to San Francisco

The 49ers came out of the lockout knowing they had to lock up their center, but because they never bothered to get an extension done with Bass before the lockout, they lost control of the best player on the market.  The options to replace him weren’t very good: Olin Kreutz wouldn’t sign with San Francisco after visiting.  The 49ers didn’t show much interest in C Chris Spencer, formerly of the Seahawks.  Eventually, SF signed Jonathon Goodwin because the Saints weren’t committed to him, and they needed to find someone to play.  Free agency actually went pretty well for the 49ers, who got bargain one year deals on CB Carlos Rogers and WR Braylon Edwards, but their OL around LG Mike Iupati is a disaster zone.  Goodwin will provide some stability.

Olin Kreutz: Chicago to New Orleans

The Saints probably did the best in this Center shuffle, because a shrewd move in the late rounds of the draft last year to grab Boston College C Matt Tennant gave them a capable starting player that meant they would not have to spend money to keep Jonathon Goodwin.  The Saints have high aspirations this year, and so they took an opportunity to find a hard-nosed vet who could play at a higher level than either Tennant or Goodwin could for a year.

The Saints won this knowing they would have been fine had they not been able to land Kreutz, but poaching him from the Bears makes their interior offensive line the best in the league.

Chris Spencer: Seattle to Chicago

At the same time that the Giants were parting ways with their mid-line guys, the Bears were engaged in ugly contract extension talks for Kreutz.  The ultimate take away here is that the Bears weren’t enthralled with Kreutz’ performance, and felt that they could acquire an upgrade in Chris Spencer.  On the surface, it looks like Chicago was just being cheap and it cost them the heart and soul of their line.  But lets be fair: a change was in the works.  The Bears will need to make Spencer a better player than he was in Seattle to realize an upgrade here, but Mike Tice did a really good job with the Bears OL last year, and so Chicago is a good landing spot for an underachiver like Spencer.

The big idea here was that the Bears knew that they had in Kreutz, and felt like they have more ability now in Spencer.

Max Ungar/Will Montgomery join NFL’s brotherhood of Centers

Two rebuilding teams are going to move their 2010 right guards to center in 2011.  Max Unger and Will Montgomery were college centers who their current teams are hoping to find will be solutions on the interior.  Unger is a pretty good bet to be the Seattle center of the future.  His skill set projects well inside (perhaps to pro bowl level in the NFC), and he’s already a proven interior player in the NFL.  Montgomery, on the other hand, has a lot more to prove, but after six years of Casey Rabach at that position, I think most Redskins fans are excited and primed for an upgrade.

The best available players at the position in free agency remain O’Hara, Seubert, and Rabach, but after Rabach failed a physical with the Ravens, it is unclear if any of these players will be physically able to play in the 2011 season.  It could be that the centers’ market that fostered this unprecedented case of OL roulette, has finally been saturated, with supply and demand meeting eye to eye.

Now three years removed from their improbable division winning 2008 campaign, the Miami Dolphins have made exactly two big splashes since that time to actually improve their roster: they traded multiple second round picks to Denver for WR Brandon Marshall, and they hired Mike Nolan to coach their defense.  Really, what else have the Dolphins done to get better in the last three years.

Well, they’ve drafted okay, and they’ve done well signing undrafted free agents, the lifeblood of an organization.  But as much as I love an undrafted free agent, it doesn’t do for an organization what sheer competency does.  And in the competency department, the Dolphins ownership and front office is severely lacking.  In no uncertain terms, they are one of the worst organizations in the sport today.

It seems like just days ago that Bill Parcells was in the upstairs offices at Dolphin Pro Player Sun Life Stadium, giving direction to this group.  The Dolphins cashed in big with their 2008 draft, landing college teammates Jake Long and Chad Henne in the first two rounds before flat stealing Kendall Langford in the third.  Phillip Merling looks like a bust, but if you need to rebuild an organization that took Ted Ginn, John Beck, and Samson Satele in the first three rounds the year before, then went 1-15, that’s the kind of draft I would want.

Except since then, the Dolphins have done everything to limit their ability to build an offense around Chad Henne, and have now turned the gun on Henne himself.  Jake Long is the best player on the offense, but there isn’t a clear second.  There was Ricky Williams, Ronnie Brown, and Lou Polite, who together formed a backfield that could hide a young QB, but with Williams aging, the Dolphins made the decision to go out and get help for their passing game.  They paid a hefty price to acquire Marshall.

Look, that move didn’t work.  If you want to know why that didn’t work, LiveBall Sports’ NFL archives are great for that.  Brandon Marshall isn’t a useless player, but when a team gives up two second round picks for him, you need to question whether that team understands how to evaluate talent.  This offseason gave us our answer.

First of all, the Dolphins have yet to admit their mistake on Marshall, keeping him locked in as their number one receiver for the future.  And after letting Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams walk this offseason with little effort to keep them, they used a late second round draft pick on a moderate-upside running back in Daniel Thomas from Kansas State, and traded for Reggie Bush under the promise that they would not acquire other running backs to make their team better.  Bush is their guy.

Needless to say, the Miami Dolphins have no idea what made Bush successful at times in New Orleans (starting with the fact that, in most cases, he was a liability).  It certainly wasn’t New Orleans’ decision to put less talent around him as not to threaten his role in the offense.  The Saints always used Reggie Bush very judiciously, to the point, in fact, where they were statistically a better offense with him inactive.  In Miami, Reggie Bush is the Dolphins only insurance against working Daniel Thomas (not a fantastic RB prospect to begin with) into the ground as a rookie.  Thomas is the most critical member of the Dolphins this year with regards to whether they win or lose.  Considering the talent-evaluating deficiencies of the organization, it can’t be comforting for Dolphins fans that Daniel Thomas is completely unproven and so critical.

The Dolphins still have good receivers on the roster, but they are limited by the Marshall acquisition.  There’s shuffling on that offensive line — Vernon Carey is reportedly moving inside to guard.  This is HC Tony Sparano’s forte — the offensive line — so it’s possible that this unit will improve in the end, but it’s also possible that Sparano is desperate to make change for the sake of change.

The worst part about this organization is that what they are doing to Chad Henne right now, dangling him out there in pursuit of incredibly underwhelming quarterback names, is something they already did to their own head coach when Jim Harbaugh was available in January.  You can’t blame Harbaugh for not wanting to come to this circus.  Give props to Sparano, he’s handling this job very well, and the Dolphins have a strong coaching staff, and Henne is a more than capable quarterback with some upside.

The 2011 Miami Dolphins project to have a very good, perhaps elite defense, and have some hope on offense.  That hope decreases by the day.  Today’s event: rumors of interest in Brett Favre.  If the season began today, the Dolphins would probably open as the second best team in the AFC East.  By the season, I fully expect them to finish in last place, and it will make the need to turn over their front office to be evident to all.  All except owner Stephen Ross, perhaps.

I would expect this to be a very rough upcoming decade for the Miami Dolphins and their fans.  The people of South Florida deserve better than this.

The single biggest, and most expected move of the 2011 NFL offseason saw the Philadelphia Eagles sell high on quarterback Kevin Kolb, dealing him to Arizona in exchanged for a second round draft pick and pro-bowl CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie.  Cromartie, who had two years remaining on his contract, was unlikely to receive a contract extension offer from the Cardinals after they took CB Patrick Peterson 5th overall in the draft.  One year from now, the Eagles will have a good idea whether DRC is going to be a long term Eagle solution at corner for them opposite Asomugha, or whether he is just a two year player for them.  This analysis will assume the latter.

To be up front about it, it’s going to be tough to tilt the analysis in a way so that the light hits it perfectly enough to make it look like Arizona comes out on top.  If there was an unproven player who was worth a cornerback like Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and a second round pick, Kevin Kolb likely wasn’t that guy.  Kolb is a guy who is worth way more to Arizona than he was to Philadelphia.  The agreed-upon price makes clear that this deal was done on Philadelphia’s terms.  Philly comes out looking great in this deal, signing Vince Young to replace Kolb on their roster, and Young has a better track record than Kolb anyway.

But for Arizona, the deal is very fair.  This makes them a better team.  A second round pick doesn’t get you all that much in the quarterback market.  It perhaps gets you Kevin Kolb at age 23 against Kolb at age 27.  But for the Cardinals, the NFC West is wide open, and this is a team that just flat dominated the division both two and three years ago.  In fact, think of it this way: the last three teams to finish above .500 from the NFC West were the 2009 Cardinals, the 2008 Cardinals, and the 2007 Seahawks.  The last three teams to finish at least .500 were the 2009 Cardinals, the 2009 49ers, and the 2008 Cardinals.  If you let 2010 shape all of your opinions about the hierarchy about this division, the Cards are hardly any more of a threat to the Rams or Seahawks now that they have Kolb than they were without him.  The Cardinals were the worst, or second worst team in the NFL last year.

But widening the scope of the NFC West landscape shows that Ken Whisenhunt’s Arizona Cardinals are the strongest team in that division since Mike Holmgren’s Seahawks.  And you could certainly argue that Kevin Kolb is a quarterback on part with Kurt Warner in his twilight years, when the Cardinals were winning divisions.  Kolb isn’t a top ten quarterback, but neither really was Warner over the last couple years of his career.  Even with an underachieving defense, this is the move that places the Cardinals back up around the top of the NFC West.

And as for the loss of Rodgers-Cromartie, it was certain that his value was going to diminish thanks to the selection of Patrick Peterson in the draft.  Arizona traded him while he still had some value.  From their perspective, it was to lessen the price of an unproven 26 or 27 year old QB who is about to hit free agency but who his current team wants to deal for value before that happens.  The market rate, in the case of Matt Schaub and others, would generally be set at two 2nd round picks.  To knock down that price to one second and a corner is a better price than the Cardinals are being given credit for.

There are two sticking points here: the personal evaluation of Rodgers-Cromartie as a top ten corner (or not a top ten corner), and the point that needs to be made about the quarterback trade market, contract extensions, and why it functions differently than other positions.  Generally speaking, the price to acquire a player who is nearing the end of his contract is discounted for the team that is acquiring the player, because they are bearing the majority of the cost anyway.  Prior to the acquisition, Kolb had a year left on his contract, and was already being paid like a starter by the Eagles (for obvious reasons).

If you think about it, that means there is value for the Eagles to simply get rid of Kolb’s contract (not dissimilar to the value for the Broncos to get rid of Kyle Orton’s contract).  But it would appear that the baseline for the Cardinals acquisition was full price.  The Eagles did not obviously give up anything to move Kolb’s contract to Arizona.  They received full price.  In fact, they were once asking for Rodgers-Cromartie and a first rounder, which would have been ridiculous.  That would have been the best packaged received for a quarterback in recent memory.

The mammoth extension the Cards gave to Kolb is going to color people’s perception of the trade, but it’s really more of a function of what Kolb was already making with the Eagles.  The Cardinals did not consciously decide that Kolb was worth this much to them, the Eagles and the rest of the NFL had already decided that for them.  If the Cardinals had decided it was too rich for their blood and had gone into the season with some combination of John Skelton and say, Marc Bulger at quarterback, they would have been chided for being cheap and risk-averse at the quarterback position.  The Cardinals have chosen to error on the side of aggression with the NFC West up for grabs, which is probably the better move.

Let’s face it, in another division, the best play here would have been to cheap out and go with full on rebuilding like the Seahawks and Bengals and Redskins have opted for.  But teams like the Cardinals, Panthers, and Broncos are going a different route.  It’s not full on rebuilding in these cities, it’s aggressive turnover at critical positions in the hope of taking advantage of a tight window of opportunity.  If it works, credit these front offices for avoiding the allure of using time granted by their situations to rebuild.  If it fails, well, credit the aggression anyway, but then also point out that the Cardinals dance with Kevin Kolb could easily end up setting the franchise back a couple of years, and that they’re in this a little bit blindly from the very beginning.

The biggest name lineman to rip out his roots and relocate to another city was Atlanta’s Harvey Dahl, a loss the Atlanta Falcons seemed to be prepared for.

The salary cap situation that the Falcons were in more or less was going to prevent them from making competitive offers to all three of their free agent offensive lineman.  The makeup of their roster would allow them to replace a player like Dahl internally.  But a player like Tyson Clabo, had he walked to become Buffalo’s right tackle, the Falcons would have been forced to go outside the organization to replace him.  So the Falcons fought to match the best offer for Clabo, even though he likely exceeded their budget for his position.  That Clabo contract caused them to put the negations for LG Justin Blalock on the back burner, and they got priced out of the market for Dahl.  Former Alabama OT Mike Johnson will be first in line to play right guard for the Falcons.

The St. Louis Rams won the Harvey Dahl sweepstakes, giving them a force on the interior of their line for power run blocking.  Dahl makes some sense for the Rams because their system under Josh McDaniels will be based on getting the ball out of the quarterback’s hands quickly, and the premium in a system like that is to have guards who can blow open the middle of the defensive line for interior runs.  He makes more sense for them than the man he is replacing, Jacob Bell.  But the Rams by and large do not employ people who are like minded to Dahl on their line, and by the time they retool the entire line into power, man-blocking types, Dahl may be expected to be in decline.  It’s a nice signing for the short term, but its’ a lot of money for a thirty year old guard.

The real winners here are the players, Dahl and Clabo.  The market was not kind to 30 year old players.  Nnamdi Asomugha got relatively devalued by his birthdate. Younger players such as Marshal Yanda and Davin Joseph signed deals that broke the bank for interior linemen.  Doug Free drew interest and got big money from the Cowboys.  Teams paid tons of money to re-up their homegrown linemen, within or even slightly in excess of their positional budgets.

Clabo and Dahl were valued for the success they enjoyed on the field, even at age thirty.  Furthermore, there is ample evidence to believe that the St. Louis Rams, specifically, did not have this aversion to 30 year old players seen on the rest of the market.  They gave a mammoth contract to 31 year old Quentin Mikell at safety.  The philosophy may have simply been to make a big signing on offense and a big signing on defense, future be damned.  But here, the Falcons managed to get a little younger on offense, and managed to retain the cornerstone of their offensive line, and eventually moved to 27 year old Justin Blalock, and his deal got done without much commotion.

Marshal Yanda cost a significant chunk of Baltimore’s cap space, but he was very much in demand by other teams, including the Washington Redskins, and he just didn’t want to leave.  Doug Free was going to be headed to the best offer, and Dallas was unwilling to let him get away, even though it cost them any shot at the FA market.  Davin Joseph wanted to stay with Tampa Bay and Tampa needed to pay someone on their roster, so he did really well to stay.  Dahl ended up being the only guy who needed to leave to obtain the most money or best situation.  And again, there’s hidden benefit for Atlanta: they get younger, while staying predominately home grown.

Breaking up the “bash brothers” on the right side of the Atlanta line is going to hurt the team in the short term: Atlanta’s projection this year from LiveBall Sports will not exceed that of any team in their division except Carolina.  But they also added Ray Edwards at LDE and re-upped Blalock unexpectedly.  Overall, it would be difficult for Falcon fans to be disappointed with the team’s work in free agency.  The Falcons will be in the mix again in 2011 before — according to our projections — they peak as an organization under GM Thomas Dimitroff in 2012.  The best thing you can say about Harvey Dahl’s decision is that, if everything goes right for his Rams, he may not have to wait that long to represent his conference in the Super Bowl.

If only the Panthers had taken AJ Green with the first overall pick, they might be in the mix for the NFC South division title.

The Panthers entered 2011 with a ton of cap space due to a complete lack of salary obligation, and a number of key unrestricted free agents.  GM Marty Hurney flew around the country in a last second attempt to keep the core of his team together.  Hurney, by his own standards, was wildly successful.  The only players the Panthers ended up losing this weekend were quarterback Matt Moore and cornerback Richard Marshall.  They resigned DE Charles Johnson, LB Thomas Davis, LB James Anderson, RB DeAngelo Williams, and extended LB Jon Beason, and as icing on the cake, they acquired Bears TE Greg Olsen in a trade.  Finally, the Panthers brought in TE Ben Hartsock (Jets), K Olindo Mare (Seahawks), and DT Ron Edwards (Chiefs).

All in all, the Panthers spent more than $80 million of Jerry Richardson’s money this week alone.  For many baseball teams, that’s an annual payroll.  For the Panthers, it bought the above.  The Panthers are locked into their current team, financially.  It’s not a particularly old roster, but the trouble is that because most of the team’s players are in their primes, the 2-14 result from last year should have sent shockwaves through the organization.  Apparently, it did not.  The Panthers big problems last year were on the offensive side of the ball, though the defense was certainly filled with it’s share of underachievers.  Those underachievers are back in 2011, and the Panthers might win their gamble that their best shot at a top third defense is to re-sign everyone with an expiring contract.  The Panthers have a suspect secondary, but even the declining Chris Gamble can still handle his side of the field.

The offense was a disaster in 2010, and to go back to the top of the article, it would have made the most sense for the Panthers to use the first overall pick on A.J. Green if they weren’t interested in rebuilding.  It appears that the new plan is to rebuild the passing game from the ground up, while leaning heavily on the running game led by DeAngelo Williams into his twilight years, and by Jonathon Stewart behind an improving OL.  Green would have given the Panthers an NFL replica offense of Jimmy Clausen’s Notre Dame team.  David Gettis looks like a steal in the 6th round, but Clausen’s best ball: the single coverage deep fade down the sideline, is a ball that Gettis consistently was outjumped on, and obviously, Steve Smith is better used on quick passes and the deep dig route than any jump ball.  Green would have changed the dynamic of the Panthers offense, and made this course of action tolerable.

Instead, Clausen becomes a fringe NFL player and likely career backup, and the Panthers will go as Newton goes.  That makes their free agency strategy of keeping the good ‘ol boys together a bit bizarre since even assuming a strong rushing attack (hardly a guarantee), the Panthers have no plans to trade Steve Smith and don’t really have the infrastructure in place to fast track Newton’s development.  By the time Carolina’s quarterback situation is solved, if it is ever solved, Smith will be in the twilight of his career as will Williams, and Stewart will be playing elsewhere thanks to free agency, and the Panthers offense may very well be Newton, TE Greg Olsen, and whatever Gettis and Brandon Lafell develop into plus future draft choices.  The defense figures to be sound throughout this process, but never good enough to define the Panthers under new head coach Ron Rivera.  They’ll be defined by Newton, and if Newton’s early career is defined by this open season on cash outflows, it could be far too long before the Panthers are ready to contend.

The quarterback carousel is in full swing.  And this trio of teams wasted no time in getting in on it.  A different post will be used to address the Kevin Kolb trade.

The first domino fell when Tarvaris Jackson agreed to terms with Seattle very shortly after the negotiating period opened on Tuesday.  Jackson followed the path first paved by offensive coordinator and Brett Favre BFF Darrell Bevell, moving from Minnesota to Seattle in the offseason.  For the Seahawks, this should have been really obvious after they didn’t select any quarterbacks in the draft.  The Hasselbeck era in Seattle gets to end amicably, and with no obvious solution to their quarterback situation, the quick add of Jackson gives them a player with a little bit of upside and starting experience on the salary of a backup who can play right away.  It’s everything that Seattle screwed up in the Charlie Whitehurst deal when they traded a third round pick for a player with no experience at the quarterback position, causing Hasselbeck to win a job that the Seahawks pretty clearly did not intend for him to win.

When you take a look at a situation like the Cincinnati Bengals have at their quarterback position (under the assumption that Carson Palmer is, in fact, a retired player), you can see what could have happened to the Seahawks if they weren’t judicious at this position.  The Bengals employ Bruce Gradkowski, Jordan Palmer, and Andy Dalton.  The Bengals have all year to try to develop Dalton, but it is quite clear, to me at least, that the Bengals best plan at the quarterback position for the future is for Palmer to have a change of heart.  Gradkowski isn’t anywhere near the player Jackson has been over his career, Jordan Palmer has failed to hold a job whenever there has been competition, and Dalton was pushed up into the second round by a ton of demand at the quarterback position.   The Seahawks were able to stay on pace in their rebuilding project while passing on mid-tier draft-eligible quarterbacks, and for their trouble, they might have picked up the highest upside player on either team (Jackson, if not Dalton), and won’t have to sit through the many moods of Bruce Gradkowski in the meantime.

Seattle opens itself up for criticism if and when the offense struggles behind Jackson, but then again, the offense struggled behind Hasselbeck last year, and they won the NFC West.  It would not be too strange an outcome to have predicted if they do so again.

Hasselbeck moves on and signs with the Tennessee Titans, which is not nearly as sound as a football move.  Tennessee was also pretty barren at the quarterback position after drafting Jake Locker with the 8th overall pick.  Hasselbeck comes in and is instantly the best quarterback on the Titan roster.  That also would have been true of most of the free agent market.  Tennessee just happened to settle on the player who is 35 years old.

Tennessee must have thought the world of him because they are still going to pay him like a top passer over the next three years at 7 million per year.  Hasselbeck was last a top passer in 2007.  Even if you believe he can sustain the gains he made in 2010 under Jeremy Bates (who was fired by the Seahawks, for reasons unknown to outsiders), Hasselbeck is still at the very, very end of his useful life, to the point where even getting 16 mildly effective games out of him is farfetched.  Hasselbeck already has an existing relationship with Locker from their days as residents of the state of Washington, but that seems like a silly thing to tack a couple extra million on there for.

My problem here is with the Tennessee Titans, not with Matt Hasselbeck, who is by all reports, a classy guy and the kind of face of an organization the Titans should want.  But the longer he remains the top QB on their roster, the more evident it will become that drafting Jake Locker was a mistake.  If Locker was going to blow us away this year, a Hasselbeck signing wouldn’t make any sense.  The Titans plan of succession is very obvious here, I’m just not sure it has any chance of working.

Tennessee’s Thursday release of former franchise quarterback and 2006 offensive rookie of the year Vince Young was a bad situation for everyone involved, including Young.  He landed a couple hours later on his feet in Philadelphia, filling the void created by the Kevin Kolb trade.  This is an obvious win for the Eagles, since Kolb and Young are pretty identical in their value to a team as backup quarterbacks.  Kolb got a monster deal from Arizona because of his projection as a starter, but for Philadelphia, there’s hardly any on-field loss.  Young is the biggest winner though: the Eagles organization is a value creating machine for quarterbacks.  He goes anywhere else, and he’s sink or swim for the rest of his career.  By going to the Eagles, he’s going to be in high demand at this point next year.  Only problem for the Eagles is that Young is on a one year deal, and if they’re going to get any value for him after the season, they can only do so by using the franchise tag on him, which will limit the return in any trade.

Then again, I’m not even convinced that Young will make it to the season there.  One unexpected injury to a QB in the preseason, and Young is going to be in demand yet again.  The fact that the Eagles hold his rights just gives the rest of the league the heads up that when you need a quarterback, you’re probably going to have to go through the Eagles to get it.

The shocking thing to me about the Nnamdi Asomugha surprise signing with the Philadelphia Eagles is how many different parties lost in this whole ordeal.

Start with Nnamdi Asomugha.  Asomugha is a west coast guy who, according to a report by Peter King, had his heart set on leaving Oakland to play on the east coast.  So, sure, Asomugha got what he wanted in Philadelphia, and I’m sure he’ll be quite satisfied playing for a class A organization into his early to mid thirties.

But this is not a good contract for Asomugha.  You can rest assured knowing the way the Eagles do business that if and when Asomugha is released by the Eagles, it will be at the nadir of his value as a player.  It’s more than possible that he’s good enough to play all five years of his contract with the Eagles and earn all $60 million in the contract, but he no longer holds that option to hit the market at the peak of his value like he did in Oakland.  Furthermore, it’s almost incomprable how much money Asomugha ended up leaving on the table to end up with the Eagles.

The best offers made by the Texans, Cowboys, 49ers, and Jets almost certainly exceeded this offer by the Eagles: 12 mil/year and 40% of the contract guaranteed.  The reason the Eagles were a surprise suitor is because those teams had better offers on the table, and eventually had to pull them, likely because of mismanagement by Asomugha’s agent.  By the time Philadelphia came in at the end, Asomugha was just taking the best available offer in a relatively weak market.  Conceivably, he could have used interest from all 30 teams to create a super market for himself.  But when it really just broke down into a five team race, Asomugha’s east coast demands made the New York Jets the only option; and then his contractual demands took them out of the picture.

The Jets are now in some kind of a bad scenario.  Asomugha would have been the icing on the cake in terms of a perfect week of free agents.  They had set their cap situation up to get him.  But the people on Asomugha’s end never pulled the trigger.  And because of that, the Jets will almost certainly enter 2011 older and with less firepower than they had in 2010.  They have some salary cap space necessary to go out and add a corner, but they were well set up to add Asomugha and trend towards the top of the NFL in defense next year.  Now, the Jets lost a couple of pieces: CB Drew Coleman, and probably WR Braylon Edwards among them.

ESPN’s John Clayton expects them to resign Antonio Cromartie, meaning their defense will look like it did last year, just older.  And that offense is in some sort of trouble, as its stable has been cut at the WR position, the teams right tackle, Damien Woody, announced his retirement, and Mark Sanchez has yet to show meaningful, measurable improvement in his NFL career to date.  We know the anvil falls on Sanchez if the Jets struggle this season, but it’s possible that this could have been avoided if the Jets never had gone after Asomugha…or had gotten him.  This is a big loss for Gang Green.

The winners, if there are any, are the Philadelphia Eagles, who get an elite player on a good contract for them and where they are as a team.  Here’s the problem: the on-field implications of Asomugha to the Eagles don’t make that much sense for the Eagles.  They traded for Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie two days ago, after their no. 2 CB hole was filled because they were poised to get Joselio Hanson back off of IR.  Now Asomugha comes in, and they still have Asante Samuel on the roster, who they might trade…or might not.

The book for beating the Eagles defense doesn’t change much with Asomugha in the fold.  Now if they keep Samuel and DRC and Hanson, this becomes a very interesting defense.  Not a great one, mind you.  But one where winning the match-up battle becomes less about spreading out the defense and throwing the ball vs trying to do everything out of your run-oriented formations.  If the Eagles opt to move Samuel for draft picks though, well, then this defense just looks a lot like the unit that the Eagles took into last year.

So I don’t see this as a super-awesome franchise defining moment for the Eagles.  Asomugha becomes the best player on that defense, but isn’t really a scheme fit, and the Eagles might have problems incorporating his skill set in a way that doesn’t make the guy playing opposite him an easy target for offenses.  Maybe they have that solved already.  It’s hard to say from the perspective of an outsider.  What is easy to say at this point is the Asomugha free agency saga had a bunch of twists and turns, and at the end of it all, I’m not convinced that any party or fanbase will leave satisfied.

I think — speaking very generally here — the players did a good job capturing which players were among the 100 best in the NFL.  Perhaps one of the most surprising things is that two of the top 20 players, as voted on by the players, qualified for unrestricted free agency in the last year or so: Nnamdi Asomugha of the Raiders, and Julius Peppers of the Bears.  However, one big name with the same qualifications as those two players was left off the top 100 list presumably because of events that occurred after he signed a large free agent contract.

That player is Albert Haynesworth.

Not only does Haynesworth deserve to be on the list, but depending on his usage pattern, there are a couple of players in the top TEN who don’t offer the impact on the game that Haynesworth does.  I have no problem with Ray Lewis, Troy Polamalu, or Julius Peppers being in the top ten on the Top 100.  But none of them are quite as dominant at their craft as Albert Haynesworth has been at his over the course of his career.

Haynesworth’s career is in the process of being irreparably stained by his tenure in Washington, and since this is a list with a bias towards the current, the combination of Haynesworth’s recent disappointments, and generally being a pain in the ass to his teammates and other players across the league is going to keep him from reaping the recognition for being a great player from his peers.  But whether to prove a point, or simply an objective evaluation of what has been recently, it’s hard to argue that as long as the defining promise of the list is the best 100 players of 2011, Haynesworth needs to be recognized as one of 2011′s best players.

There is plenty of uncertainty over whether the Washington Redskins will even allow Haynesworth to play this season.  Certainly, they aren’t going to trade him to the division rival Eagles, who could have had him in the McNabb trade, but now want him with former Titans DL coach Jim Washburn on the staff.  And with the Lions out of the running for his services, there aren’t a lot of other options for the Redskins beyond waiting him out and trying to use Haynesworth to the best of their ability.  So Haynesworth is very likely to play this season in Washington, and however reluctantly, will probably find his way into Washington’s 3-4 defense because he has no other option.

Once Haynesworth puts his personal pride aside, I think he will find out that he’s actually quite good as a 3-4 nose tackle.  Perhaps he’ll be better than any other nose in football.  Only time will tell.  There’s a lot of days left before he has a Carson Palmer type decision on his hands.  And Haynesworth is nothing if prideful.  If he has to dominate NFC East teams simply to win his freedom from Washington, I could see the Redskins agreeing to an incentive-based termination of Haynesworth’s contract.

I fully expect Haynesworth to be on the players’ list when they do this again in 2012.  I mean heck, Michael Vick is the 20th ranked player on the 2011 list, and who in their right mind would have ranked him above Haynesworth prior to 2010?  Haynesworth is both a great football player and a dominating force.  And typically, history has shown that those factors aren’t obscured for very long by personal transgressions.

As clear as it was last week that both late round picks and recent undrafted free agents form the core of contending NFC teams, such as the Packers, we’ll look at a couple of the dynasties that dominate the AFC and examine the role of the cost-free acquisition on building a consistent winner…and challenging the consistently dominant teams in the AFC.

Undrafted Free Agents: Evidence from the AFC

An asterisk denotes a player who is no longer cheap because he is on his second (or third) contract, but was acquired via the means discussed in this article.

AFC South

Best undrafted players: WR Jason Hill (waivers from SF), FB Vonta Leach (expiring contract), G Mike Brisiel, S Bernard Pollard (waivers from KC), FB Ahmard Hall, DT Tony Brown*, C Jeff Saturday*, LB Gary Brackett*, CB Jacob Lacey

Best late round draft picks: QB David Garrard*, RB Rashad Jennings, TE Zach Miller, OL Uche Nwaneri*, DE Austen Lane, WR Kevin Walter* (signed as RFA from Cincinnati), TE Owen Daniels*, TE Joel Dreessen (by NYJ), CB Glover Quin, RB Javon Ringer, TE Bo Scaife* (expiring contract), C Eugene Amano*, G Leroy Harris, CB Cortland Finnegan*, CB Alterraun Verner, WR Austin Collie, WR Pierre Garcon, TE Jacob Tamme, OT Ryan Diem*, LB Clint Session, LB Kavell Conner, CB Justin Tryon (by Washington), S Antoine Bethea*

Analysis: The Jaguars are an excellent example of a team that hardly ever uses cost-free competition for its draft picks, as both the offense and the defense are littered with second and third rounders everywhere.  Sometimes, the draft works well right from the first season (Maurice Jones-Drew), sometimes you get a huge return a few years down the road (David Garrard, Marcedes Lewis, Daryl Smith).  Sometimes, you draft a really good player, but he signs a big contract and with no competition, he loses effectiveness entirely and is still in the starting lineup because “he’s all you’ve got” (Rashean Mathis).  And then sometimes you draft a total bust (Reggie Nelson), and four years later you don’t have any starter at the position.  If the Jags were better with UDFAs than they have been, they would have won multiple AFC South’s over the last few years, but their roster has always had an underachiever problem, even when it was young.

The Texans don’t have a lot to show for it, but there are elements of intelligent design in their offense.  FB Vonta Leach was a cost-free pickup from Green Bay in the middle of the 2006 season, Gary Kubiak’s first year, and he’s served an entire contract length with the Texans.

The Colts are the opposite of the Jags: they find undrafted free agent contributors every season, and more than just that, they aren’t afraid to play them.

Overall the AFC South appears to be the one division that has had far more success in the late rounds of the NFL draft against undrafted free agent signings.  But the Colts, who use both, often have the strongest and deepest roster of the entire group.

AFC North

Best Undrafted Players: WR/KR Josh Cribbs*, TE Evan Moore, DE Matt Roth (waivers from Miami), LB Chris Gocong (S. Brown trade throw-in from Philadelphia), RB Cedric Benson* (cost-free UFA), RB Brian Leonard (contract swap w/St. Louis), WR Quan Cosby, G Nate Livings, C Kyle Cook, RB Isaac Redman, LB James Harrison*, DL Kelly Gregg* (signed to BAL practice squad in 2000), LB Jameel McClain

Best late round draft picks: RB Peyton Hillis (by Denver), FB Lawrence Vickers, DT Ahtyba Rubin, RB Bernard Scott, DT Domata Peko, OT Willie Colon, DE Aaron Smith*, DE Brett Keisel*, CB Ike Taylor* (contract expiring), FB Le’Ron McClain, OT Jared Gaither, LB Jarret Johnson*,

Analysis: One of the more loaded NFL divisions now that the Browns have decided to join the party.  And there a significant undrafted flavor in this division, although not so much recently, so if you’re looking for the decline of the Steelers and Ravens soon, you can look at the inefficiency in the cost structure of their (still very loaded) respective rosters.  Look at the Steelers for example.  You have two pro bowl 3-4 ends who were developmental draft picks.  They are now being paid like starters.  Also being paid like starters are their future replacements, first round picks Ziggy Hood (2009) and Cam Heyward (2011).  Casey Hampton is a nose tackle entering his mid-thirties on an expensive contract he signed in 2010.  Longtime backup Chris Hoke is an unrestricted free agent, and highly undervalued.  Then at the linebacker level, James Harrison is still elite, but in the middle of a mega deal.  Lamarr Woodley has the franchise tag, and figures to sign a mega deal to offer Pittsburgh cap relief (whenever there is a cap again).  Where does that leave Lawrence Timmons, an elite interior linebacker in the last year of his rookie contract?  Pittsburgh will likely resign him too, but likely will have to release Aaron Smith to free up that salary.  They got a discount on Ryan Clark (thanks, rest of the NFL), but can’t afford depth behind him and Polamalu.  And Ike Taylor is probably walking because the Steelers feel can win without him.  If you look at the cost structure of the Steelers, you can maybe see the business reason for dealing Santonio Holmes when they did: they couldn’t have afforded him anyway.  That’s a terrible cost structure, and we just covered the defense.  The Ravens aren’t a lot better, except that they haven’t tied 100 million up in a quarterback yet.

This is a good division for UDFAs, and no franchise is an obvious leader in terms of efficiency.  The teams that have the most talent are also paying the most to keep their talent.  That means the Browns and Bengals will have every chance to rise as the Steelers and Ravens age, but must continue to add talent to play a meaningful role in the future.

AFC East

Best undrafted free agents: RB Fred Jackson, WR Davone Bess*, WR Brian Hartline, LB Cameron Wake, RB BenJarvus Green Ellis, RB Danny Woodhead, DE Mike Wright*, G Brandon Moore*, DE Mike DeVito

Best late round draft picks: WR Stevie Johnson, OT Demetrius Bell, DT Kyle Williams*, CB Terrence McGee*, NT Paul Soliai, S Yeremiah Bell*, TE Aaron Hernandez, C Dan Koppen*, LB Rob Ninkovich (by New Orleans), WR Jericho Cotchery*, WR Brad Smith (expired contract), G Matt Slauson

Analysis: Few teams have been able to extract more value out of undrafted free agents than have the Miami Dolphins, who built most of their receiving corps from college UDFAs, and went to the CFL to find Cameron Wake, one of the NFL’s most terrifying pass rushers.  One of the teams that may have the Dolphins bested, unsurprisingly, is the New England Patriots if only because they can turn BenJarvus Green-Ellis and Danny Woodhead into household names, and people are so generally unimpressed that the number one surprise about the Patriots’ undrafted free agent tactics is who they will find this year.  The Pats have not been nearly as successful at receiver as they have been at running back in finding cost-free, winning options.  As far as cost structure goes, it’s still the Dolphins world in the AFC East.  Of course, that was before they brought Brandon Marshall on board.  We will see where he takes them.

The Bills have little to speak of.  Kyle Williams is on a team friendly deal: he earned his extension through 2012, and he’s due even more money from someone when that deal runs out.  Fantasy owners know all about the Bills one undrafted contributor, RB Fred Jackson.  His undrafted contributions are limited by the fact that he is almost 30 years old, and that the Bills have spent two first round picks on RBs since he’s been on the team.  WR Stevie Johnson was a big time draft steal, but that’s all the Bills have done in the late rounds to date.

The Jets have always done a good job finding cheap players to plug their holes, although they have long preferred (even prior to Eric Mangini) the veteran free agent route to going with undrafted players and developing them.

AFC West

Best undrafted free agents: G Brian Waters*, G Ryan Lilja (waivers from Indianapolis), DE Wallace Gilberry, LB Jovan Belcher, FB Marcell Reese, DT Tommy Kelly*, CB Chris Johnson*, RB Mike Tolbert, WR Malcolm Floyd (expiring contract), TE Antonio Gates*, G Kris Dielman*, NT Antonio Garay (waivers from Chicago), LB Antwaan Applewhite

Best late round draft picks: OT Barry Richardson, CB Brandon Carr, WR Louis Murphy, WR Jacoby Ford, WR Chaz Schilens, DE Trevor Scott, S Tyvon Branch, DE Elvis Dumerville*, CB Perrish Cox, RB Darren Sproles, FB Jacob Hester, NT Cam Thomas, DE Jacques Cesaire*, LB Shaun Phillips*

Analysis: Really, the only place in which Scott Pioli has outperformed the Patriots since he took over in Kansas City is in terms of undrafted free agents, on the backs of which the Chiefs have successfully rebuilt their defense.  But if we’re giving credit to the Chiefs for rebuilding their defense on the cheap, what do you say about the Raiders, who have given Jason Campbell more weapons than he ever had in Washington and they spent: a 7th rounder in 2008, 4th rounder in 2009, a 4th rounder in 2010, and now in Denarius Moore works out, a 6th rounder in 2011.  If only their mid round picks spent on protecting Campbell could work out as well.  Both the Chiefs and Raiders are vastly outpacing the Denver Broncos in undrafted free agent contribution.  In fact, Denver does not have an undrafted, cost-effective player who is in the starting lineup right now.

The San Diego Chargers are the gold standard for this exercise.  No team in the last decade has done a better job finding talent from all sources, particularly those sources which do not cost the Chargers might to take a look see.  Tolbert, Floyd, and Gates could start for nearly any team in the league, and have helped to keep the Chargers near the top of the league leaderboards.  Kris Dielman has long been the leader on the Chargers OL.  Did you know he too was undrafted?  He was.  What about young Antwaan Appelwhite?  He was undrafted as well.

And the Chargers deserve credit for how they attack the late rounds of the NFL Draft as well.  Jacques Cesaire has been a contributer on the DL of the Chargers since they’ve been playing a 3-4.  Stephen Cooper, Brandon Siler, and Kevin Burnett make this LB corps a strength.  And this team is still loaded with plenty of prospects.

The Chargers have had some difficult drafts since 2009.  They haven’t gotten a lot of return on their picks in the first two rounds, notably LB Larry English, RB Ryan Mathews, and LB Donald Butler didn’t play last year.  But this team is still a good pick, annually, to reach the super bowl, and it’s because of excellent roster construction on the cheap.  No team has been better at building resource-free than the San Diego Chargers, a great bet to be the team of the 2010′s.