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While a superstar heads to free agency on occasion, NFL teams mostly use the open market in hopes of patching a few holes on the roster.

As the NFL enters the 2020 edition, we're pressing pause and reviewing the last eight offseasons, beginning with 2012. That timeline is every signing period since the league signed its collective bargaining agreement in 2011. We calculated all free-agent contracts—both returning and new players—to determine which teams have spent the most money.

Although many of these agreements end before the initial contract term is realized, this is an ideal way to show the NFL's most active teams in free agency recently.

The numbers do not include 2020 signings.