Welcome to 2019 NFL free agency. I'm grading the most notable offseason moves -- signings and trades -- below, so come back throughout the month for updates as deals are completed.

The most recent grades and write-ups are at the top, and the first grade goes all the way back to Feb. 7, when the Cardinals added cornerback Robert Alford.

Keep in mind that I'm not grading deals until we get a clearer picture of the money involved. If you don't see a grade for a deal that has been reported, check back later.

Jump to a big move:

Signings: WR Tate | S Thomas | RB Ingram | RB Bell

OLB Barr | OLB Fowler | ILB Mosley | S Mathieu

QB Foles | DE Flowers | OT Brown | DT Richardson

LB Alexander | S Weddle | DE Graham | OT Smith

Trades: OBJ to CLE | AB to OAK | Flacco to DEN

OAK-NYJ | PHI-NE | NYG-CLE | DEN-WSH

Tuesday, April 23

Seattle Seahawks send: DE Frank Clark, 84th overall pick

Kansas City Chiefs send: 29th and 92nd picks, lesser of 2020 second-round picks

Seahawks grade: B

Chiefs grade: D+

Wow. Make no mistake: The Chiefs are giving up an enormous haul in this deal. Let's say they end up making it to the AFC Championship Game and send the 60th pick in the 2020 draft to the Seahawks to finish up this trade. (If they finish with a higher draft pick than the 49ers, whose pick they own as part of the Ford trade, they'll send the Niners' pick instead.)

When you calculate the value of each pick using Chase Stuart's draft value chart, this trade values Clark at 21.1 points of draft capital, which is somewhere between the seventh and eighth overall selections in a typical draft. Most organizations would build in some level of a discount because the 2020 second-round pick is delayed compensation, but you get the idea.

To put that in context, if we assume that the Bears finish with the 20th pick in the draft next year and the Raiders end up picking sixth, which I would characterize as conservative estimates on both ends, the Bears will end up sending 22.8 points of draft capital on the Stuart chart to the Raiders as part of the Khalil Mack deal. That's about halfway between the sixth and seventh picks in a typical draft. (Again, a good chunk of the compensation on both sides here is delayed a year.)

Frank Clark had 35 sacks in four seasons in Seattle. Christopher Mast/Icon Sportswire

The difference is larger on the traditional Jimmy Johnson chart -- the Bears would send the equivalent of the 12th pick in a typical draft to the Raiders for Mack under this scenario, while the Chiefs are sending draft capital equal to the 18th pick to the Seahawks for Clark. To put it another way, on the Stuart chart, these two trades value the difference between Clark and Mack as being equivalent to the 175th pick in a typical draft. The Johnson chart has it at the 60th spot, but the Stuart chart is more accurate than its better-known predecessor.

As was the case with the Bears, the Chiefs are also handing Clark an enormous contract as part of this trade. The deal isn't quite as large as Mack's contract, but it's a five-year, $105.5 million deal, which narrowly tops the $105 million commitment DeMarcus Lawrence took home from the Cowboys after being tagged this year for the second time. The structure of Lawrence's deal essentially guarantees that he'll make $65 million over its first three years, and I would expect Clark's deal to also have a similar sort of real commitment.

Because the Chiefs traded significant draft capital to acquire Clark, though, the true value of this deal is much larger. As I wrote about with the Mack trade, forgoing the surplus value the Chiefs would have netted from their draft picks makes Clark a more expensive proposition. The specific surplus value depends on the player and his position, but to throw a number out there, the eighth overall pick will make about $4.9 million per year, and it has delivered players such as Roquan Smith, Christian McCaffrey, and Jack Conklin in years past.

Just to pick a round number, those guys would each make somewhere around $10 million if they hit the open market this offseason. Having four years of a player like that would create more than $20 million in surplus value over that $4.9 million per year figure. If you add that onto Clark's deal, since that's the draft capital it cost to acquire him, you're looking at paying Clark closer to $26 million per year than the $21 million figure.

From a contract perspective, it's a very different deal to the contract the Chiefs presumably could have signed Dee Ford to before Ford was traded to the 49ers. Ford's five-year, $85.5 million pact has a smaller maximum value and a much more team-friendly structure; the 49ers are essentially paying Ford $21 million in Year 1 and can go year-to-year after that with modest amounts of dead money on their cap.

Combine these deals and maybe it's not as damning. The Chiefs traded away Ford, their first- and third-round picks, and a 2020 second-rounder to get back Clark, a slightly better third-round pick and a 2020 second-rounder from the 49ers. If the Chiefs wanted to upgrade at pass-rusher without paying Ford, they eventually got there.

Clark is a better player than Ford, even if their sack and quarterback knockdown numbers were similar last season. Ford benefited from playing on a high-tempo team that got in a lot of shootouts, while Clark played on a Seahawks team that tended to grind out drives on offense. Ford had 13 sacks and 29 knockdowns on 514 pass-rush attempts, the sixth-most in football. Clark, meanwhile, racked up 13 sacks and 27 knockdowns across 424 pass-rush opportunities, which was 31st in the league.

You would also bet on Clark's deal to age better. At 25, he is more than two full years younger than Ford. Ford underwent back surgery in college, and while that didn't scare the Chiefs off from taking him in the first round of the 2014 draft, Ford underwent a second back surgery in 2017 which cost the Auburn product most of his fourth season as a pro. Clark has missed only two games in four seasons as a pro.

His concerns are instead off the field. Clark was dismissed from Michigan during the 2014 season after being arrested on domestic violence charges. Clark hasn't had any follow-up incidents during his time as a professional, but he was forced to apologize in 2017 after insulting Bleacher Report writer Natalie Weiner for discussing Clark's past in an article. It's one thing for any organization to give Clark a big contract, but it's another for the Chiefs, who have already had to release Kareem Hunt and are currently grappling with an investigation into an alleged battery involving a juvenile at the home of Tyreek Hill.

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The issue in treating the Clark trade as part of the Ford deal is that the Chiefs weren't limited to two options. Their choices weren't between paying Ford as part of a long-term deal or trading Ford and using the savings to pay Clark. They could have franchised Ford or given him a similar deal to the 49ers while using their draft capital to either pick a second defensive end or as part of a deal to trade up and grab another pass-rusher. They could have waited a year, rolled over their cap space, and gone after Ford or one of the other pass-rushers available in free agency. They could have targeted someone like Jadeveon Clowney with a similar deal. They could have topped the Patriots' trade offer for Michael Bennett and the Lions' offer for Trey Flowers. There are countless scenarios.

In viewing this trade in a vacuum, the Chiefs didn't come away with good value. I understand the desire to build a winner around Patrick Mahomes while his contract is cheap, but the teams that have won with a quarterback on a rookie deal haven't made this sort of move and felt good about it afterward. The Seahawks signed Bennett and Cliff Avril in free agency; the trade they made was to send draft picks and acquire Percy Harvin, which turned out to be the single worst move of general manager John Schneider's career. The Eagles added free agents without trading an enormous draft-pick haul for any one player to help out Carson Wentz. The Patriots have won under the current collective bargaining agreement with Tom Brady on a team-friendly deal, if not quite a rookie contract, but they haven't made this sort of trade while simultaneously handing out a market-value deal in the process.

For the Seahawks, this deal is easier to understand, although I think it's too simplistic to apply the popular logic going around. Yes, the Seahawks probably planned on moving on from Clark after handing Russell Wilson an extension with an annual average salary of $35 million per season. The baseline for a Clark deal would have been a third-round pick, given that the Seahawks could have theoretically netted the best possible compensatory selection if they let Clark leave in free agency.

This is a lot more than a third-rounder, of course, but the decision to move on from Clark is independent of this trade. The Seahawks, again, could have kept Clark and franchised him again before moving him next season. There's a chance they could have kept Clark and been a better football team in 2019. Schneider certainly could have found a way to squeeze a new deal for Clark on their cap, given that the Seahawks have $54 million in cap space in 2020 and a staggering $119 million in 2021. Those might have been better moves. Trading Clark doesn't in itself justify the decision to move on from Clark.

Given all those possibilities, though, I think I would rather have the extra draft capital in a class full of pass-rushers and defensive linemen and throw that at my defensive line as opposed to giving Clark $21 million per season on a new deal. The Seahawks had just four picks in this year's draft before making Tuesday's trade; now, they have the 21st and 29th picks and an extra second-rounder to work with in 2020.

Schneider should be able to draft a long-term replacement for Clark at No. 21 and shop the 29th pick to teams trying to move up to grab a player or merely secure a fifth-year option on the guy they want for an extra pick or two. He could also theoretically use his two first-rounders to trade up into the top 10 if a player such as Josh Allen or Montez Sweat falls to the 8-10 range. The Seahawks weren't winning a Super Bowl with Clark on their roster. The Chiefs might need to win one in 2019 to make this trade work.

Saturday, April 6

The deal: Five years, $105 million

Grade: C+

Given that Lawrence held most of the leverage in this negotiation, it's not a surprise that the Boise State product was able to get a better deal than the likes of Trey Flowers and Dee Ford. Lawrence is the only one of the three to top an $18 million average annual salary, and he gets all the way to $21 million. Flowers and Ford weren't on their second franchise tag, which meant that Lawrence was guaranteed $20.5 million on a one-year deal if he chose to sign the offer. Doing so would have left the Cowboys with the option of moving on from Lawrence in 2020 or signing him to a third franchise tag for $29.5 million.

DeMarcus Lawrence has 34 sacks since the Cowboys drafted him in the second round in 2014. Mark J. Rebilas/USA Today Sports

Instead, the Cowboys will lock up Lawrence on a five-year pact. The deal reportedly has $65 million in guarantees, but I doubt those are full guarantees at signing. Dallas typically guarantees a large signing bonus and two years of base salaries to its star players in extensions. We know Lawrence will take home a $25 million signing bonus and a $6.5 million salary in Year 1, which means a total of at least $31.5 million in full guarantees at signing. Unless the Cowboys are paying Lawrence $33.5 million in Year 2, which seems extremely unlikely, Lawrence is likely looking at something closer to $47 million or so in full guarantees at signing.

The structure allows the Cowboys to keep his Year 1 cap figure relatively low. Lawrence will have a $11.5 million cap hit in 2019, which helps the Cowboys as they try to re-sign Dak Prescott, Amari Cooper and Byron Jones this offseason.

Monday, April 1

Cleveland Browns get: S Eric Murray

Kansas City Chiefs get: DE Emmanuel Ogbah

Chiefs grade: B-

Browns grade: C

One of the lessons we've learned over the past year is that Browns general manager John Dorsey doesn't like Sashi Brown draft picks. After trading Ogbah and cutting Ricardo Louis and Derrick Kindred over the weekend, the Browns are left with just three members of the deposed general manager's 14-player class from the 2016 draft: middle linebacker Joe Schobert, backup wideout Rashard Higgins and tight end Seth DeValve.

It's no surprise that Cleveland wanted to upgrade at defensive end from Ogbah, who wasn't healthy or particularly productive as a starter over the past two seasons. After racking up 5.5 sacks and 16 knockdowns as a rookie, the Oklahoma State product generated just seven sacks and 13 knockdowns over 24 starts in 2017-18. After the Browns traded for Olivier Vernon, the writing was on the wall for an Ogbah deal.

Former second-round pick Emmanuel Ogbah (90) is headed to Kansas City. Andy Lewis/Icon Sportswire

At the same time, though, it seems weird that the Browns were so aggressive to move on from Ogbah. There's a non-zero chance that he might have been more productive in a limited role as Cleveland's third edge rusher, and it's not as if the Browns are terribly deep at the position behind Vernon and Myles Garrett. Mid-career breakouts happen for guys who show signs of life on the edge -- think about Nick Perry and Kyle Vanden Bosch as examples -- and the Browns could have picked up a valuable compensatory pick next offseason if Ogbah pieced together an eight-sack season.

If they had come away with a greater return for Ogbah, I'd understand this deal more, but what they're really getting in Murray is one year of a very good special-teamer. Murray was stretched under former coordinator Bob Sutton when asked to play regular snaps on defense, and if Browns fans are expecting Murray to step into the lineup as a replacement for Jabrill Peppers, they're going to be disappointed. Murray's $2 million salary after earning the proven performance bonus doesn't make him a bargain if he plays strictly on special teams, either. He is a useful player to have on the back of a roster, but he doesn't have the upside Ogbah offers.

In a vacuum, I like the Chiefs taking a shot on adding edge-rushing help by trading for Ogbah. Kansas City is relatively deep at safety, and while Murray was a valuable contributor on special teams, I have faith that special-teams coach Dave Toub will be able to mold another Murray out of a late-round pick at a fraction of the cost. I'm not sure Ogbah is going to be a useful edge rusher, but if he breaks out, this is a great deal for Chiefs GM Brett Veach.

When you look at the bigger picture (which isn't included in the grade above), though, it's hard to endorse what the Chiefs did on defense. They paid an exorbitant price to replace Eric Berry with Tyrann Mathieu. They've cut Justin Houston and traded Dee Ford, and while they picked up a 2020 second-rounder in the process, their edge-rushing committee includes Ogbah, Alex Okafor and former second-rounders Tanoh Kpassagnon and Breeland Speaks. It's a cheaper bunch, but the Chiefs didn't use the money they saved to upgrade elsewhere.

Given that Ford's contract with the 49ers really amounts to a one-year, $19.8 million pact, it's hard to argue that the Chiefs wouldn't have been better off giving Ford the same deal and not signing Okafor. The Chiefs are in better cap shape and can roll this money over into next season, when they'll need to re-sign the likes of Chris Jones, Tyreek Hill, and possibly Patrick Mahomes, but they're not maximizing their window while Mahomes is making a fraction of his actual value.

Friday, March 29

Philadelphia Eagles get: RB Jordan Howard

Chicago Bears get: 2020 sixth-round pick (conditional)

Bears grade: C+

Eagles grade: B+

We know the Eagles don't like committing serious assets toward running backs, even if it means rotating players in and out of the role. You could argue that it's a pointed reaction to the year in which Chip Kelly was general manager and signed DeMarco Murray and Ryan Mathews, but Philly has cycled through guys such as LeGarrette Blount and Jay Ajayi and been just fine.

Coach Doug Pederson basically played the hot hand after Ajayi went down last season, but that's a generous interpretation of temperature; in 2018, Philly didn't have a single back top 85 rushing yards or post a game with more than nine successful rushes by expected points added. The Eagles could have run things back in 2019 with the likes of Josh Adams and Wendell Smallwood as their primary ball carrier, but it seemed likely they would target a low-cost veteran to be in the mix.

Jordan Howard and Walter Payton are the only players in Bears history with at least 3,000 rushing yards and 20 rushing touchdowns in their first three seasons. AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh

Howard certainly doesn't cost them much, given that he'll make a little over $2 million in the final year of his rookie deal, and only that much because he hit proven performance escalators during his run with the Bears. The party line on Howard is that he wasn't a great fit for Matt Nagy's offense, but he was hardly a disaster last season. His 50 percent success rate ranked 17th in the league and was right in line with the 49 percent mark he posted during his Pro Bowl rookie campaign in 2016.

The 24-year-old averaged 5.2 yards per carry that season but only 3.7 yards per rush this past campaign. What was missing? Long runs. In 2016, Howard produced six runs of more than 25 yards, including carries for 69, 57, 36 and 31 yards. In 2018, he had one such carry, a 42-yarder. The 224-pound back isn't exactly Tarik Cohen in the open field, but long runs tend to be random from year to year, so it wouldn't be shocking if he broke big plays more frequently in 2019.

The Bears telegraphed their intentions with Howard by signing Mike Davis to a two-year, $6 million pact this offseason. Chicago will hope that Davis is a better receiver than Howard, which was the case in 2018, although Howard had been a more effective receiver in 2016 and 2017. Signing Davis could have cost the Bears a compensatory pick, but trading Howard gives them a shot at getting that pick back. I'm not sure I wouldn't rather just hold onto Howard.

If Howard has a season more like his 2016 or 2017 campaigns, meanwhile, the Eagles could very well end up getting a compensatory pick back for Howard. Renting Howard for a year with the upside of getting a similar pick in return is a nice piece of business for GM Howie Roseman.

Dallas Cowboys get: DE Robert Quinn

Miami Dolphins get: 2020 sixth-round pick

Cowboys grade: B-

Dolphins grade: B-

With Randy Gregory suspended and DeMarcus Lawrence negotiations not going well, the Cowboys needed to add some pass-rushing depth. In convincing Quinn to take a pay cut to a one-year, $8 million deal, they are adding the guy who has the most theoretical upside left on the market. We're now five seasons removed from that 19-sack campaign that firmly placed Quinn on the map, but the former North Carolina star has averaged just under seven sacks over the ensuing five seasons.

Quinn gets a year to work with excellent Cowboys defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli, who has coaxed effective seasons out of much less talented defensive linemen. If Quinn posts double-digit sacks, the Cowboys can net a meaningful comp pick in the 2021 draft. Ideally, the Cowboys will be able to rely on Taco Charlton and Lawrence on the edge and use Quinn as a rotation rusher, but Quinn could force the issue in what amounts to a contract year.

The Dolphins were reportedly willing to eat some of Quinn's base salary to try to get a better draft pick via trade, a move they pulled as part of the Ryan Tannehill trade with the Titans. Given that they paid $5 million in that deal to come away with the difference between their sixth-round pick and Tennessee's fourth- and seventh-round selections, I think the Dolphins are probably better off saving their cash.

Thursday, March 21

The deal: Two years, $24 million

Grade: B-

It's probably helpful to forget about the Justin Houston who racked up 22 sacks in 16 games back in 2014. That's the last time he played 16 games in a season, and it came before he underwent a knee surgery in 2016 that wiped away most of that season. Over the two subsequent campaigns, Houston has 18.5 sacks and 32 knockdowns, with most of the latter coming in the 2017 season. The Georgia product has also missed five games over that span with injuries, which is one of the reasons the Chiefs weren't comfortable paying him a $15.3 million base salary for 2019.

Former Chiefs executive Chris Ballard, now the GM in Indy, seems to have struck a good balance in bringing Houston to the Colts, assuming that this two-year deal is really a one-year contract in terms of guarantees. (Even a two-year, mostly guaranteed deal for the 30-year-old Houston doesn't strike me as outlandish.) The Colts are building a rotation on the edge with Jabaal Sheard and 2018 second-rounders Kemoko Turay and Tyquan Lewis, but the 258-pound Houston is the best pure pass-rusher of that bunch and is likely to figure as the lead portion of their pass-rush grouping. With Indy ranking 29th in adjusted sack rate last season, the Colts just addressed their biggest need.

The deal: One year, up to $5 million

Grade: D

It's difficult to find reasons to endorse Burfict, who increasingly seems like he doesn't belong on the football field as he poses a danger to opposing players, his own team and himself. Burfict's résumé with dirty hits requires little introduction, but the guy who made the Pro Bowl in 2013 as a tackling machine isn't around anymore. As ESPN's Katherine Terrell noted in her story on Burfict, one former Bengals staff member suggested Cincinnati moved on from Burfict "five years too late."

Vontaze Burfict is headed to Oakland, reunited with his former defensive coordinator in Cincinnati. Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

At this point, it's difficult to expect any sort of regular work from Burfict. Injuries and suspensions have cost the former Arizona State star 37 games over the past five seasons. You can understand why former Bengals defensive coordinator Paul Guenther might want to give his old charge another shot in Oakland, but the Raiders need to be finding long-term building blocks on defense. Even in the best-case scenario, Burfict is a stopgap whom the Raiders would have to weigh re-signing after an unexpectedly successful season.

The deal: Three years, $15.75 million

Grade: C+

The Titans signed Kline off of the waiver wire after his time in New England, and after two seasons of Kline as a powerful run-blocker, Tennessee re-signed him to a four-year, $26.5 million deal. After paying him $7.25 million for 2018, the Titans were so disappointed by Kline that they chose to cut the 29-year-old, even though they had already guaranteed $2 million of his salary for 2019.

On one hand, I like the idea of the Vikings buying relatively low on him, given that the deal he signed a year ago was for a 26 percent larger annual salary, had an extra year and came when the cap was lower. My issue here is that the Titans didn't like how Kline fit in an offense that was at its best running outside zone with Derrick Henry, and after hiring Gary Kubiak and Rick Dennison to work underneath offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski, it seems likely that the Vikings are about to build their rushing attack around the outside zone. Signing Kline also seems to point toward the Vikings running the football more frequently, and while that might please Mike Zimmer, giving Dalvin Cook touches at the expense of early-down throws to Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs doesn't excite me.

The deal: One year, $5 million

Grade: C+

Cobb is nominally the replacement for Cole Beasley, who signed with the Bills after tweeting that the front office pushed the ball where it wanted it to go. One might argue that throwing to Dez Bryant and later Amari Cooper could be construed as more appealing for Dak Prescott, but it's fair to suggest that Beasley felt like there were opportunities to make plays in the slot.

In adding Cobb, though, the Cowboys are signing a receiver who hasn't made many plays over the past few seasons. When the Packers signed Cobb to a four-year, $40 million deal in March of 2015, the Kentucky product was coming off of a 1,287-yard, 12-touchdown season. He had averaged 13.4 yards per reception and increased his receiving yards per game in each of his first four seasons, all the way up to 80.4 yards per game in 2014.

Randall Cobb caught just 38 passes with two touchdowns in 2018. Dan Powers/The Post-Crescent/USA TODAY Sports

Since then ... it hasn't been great. Cobb has averaged 619 yards and four touchdowns per season while racking up just 10.2 yards per catch. His receiving yards per game immediately cratered to 51.8 yards per contest and continued to fall in each of the three ensuing seasons. Seventy-five of his 383 receiving yards last season came on the game-winning touchdown pass Cobb caught from Aaron Rodgers in the opener; he failed to top 45 yards in any single contest the rest of the way.

The Cowboys didn't have to make a significant commitment to Cobb, which is good in a market in which slot receivers were pushing $9 million per season. I'm not sure there's a great fit here, though, because the best place for Cooper to operate might be out of the slot. The Cowboys could use Cobb on jet sweeps and as an occasional halfback, but I'm not sure he has those jets anymore, and Dallas also re-signed Tavon Austin to a one-year deal. With Michael Gallup ascending and Jason Witten unretiring and likely demanding a higher target share than Dallas' tight ends did a year ago, Cobb's role from game to game is likely to be inconsistent.

Monday, March 18

The deal: One year, $4 million

Grade: F

Washington's streak of upsetting Giants fans by signing away Jerry Reese draft picks ended with Landon Collins at one. Flowers has shown little aptitude for the sport, doesn't appear to do much in the way of research, and responded to criticism by shoving a media member. The Giants finally gave up on the former top-10 pick after three-plus seasons and cut Flowers, who went to the Jaguars and filled in at tackle during the second half of last season. The Jaguars cut starting right tackle Jermey Parnell and didn't retain Flowers, which is telling if you want to pretend he impressed with a fresh start in Florida. You don't necessarily need a great work ethic to succeed at the offensive line if you're a freak athlete, as Bryant McKinnie's career showed, but you have to be good at football.

Former top-10 pick Ereck Flowers has signed a one-year deal with Washington. Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire

Flowers' new organization intends to move him to guard, a position he has never played (to my knowledge). That's hardly ideal. The soon-to-be-25-year-old will get a great offensive line coach in Bill Callahan, but justifying this deal by pointing solely to the coach to turn around a player who hasn't ever been good at his job doesn't make sense. Callahan would make everyone better.

Perhaps worst of all, Washington is committing $4 million for the privilege of trying a consistently replacement-level player at a new position on a one-year deal. By not securing a second- or third-year option on the Miami product, even if Callahan pulls a miracle and manages to coax competency out of Flowers at guard, Washington will just see its new charge hit free agency in 2020. This is a remarkably low-floor, low-ceiling move, and Washington is paying millions for a player who shouldn't justify more than the minimum as a reclamation project.

Sunday, March 17

The deal: Two years, $12 million

Grade: C+

After failing to replace Ryan Shazier last season and allowing the second-worst DVOA in football to tight ends, the Steelers finally made a move to upgrade at inside linebacker by importing the former Rams defender. This two-year deal is likely for one guaranteed season with an option, which gives the Steelers some flexibility regardless of how Barron plays in year one. Since the Rams cut him, the signing doesn't impact the third-round pick the Steelers are currently expecting to receive for Le'Veon Bell.

My concern is simply that Barron hasn't been a good coverage linebacker in years past. The former safety is a fun blitzer and big hitter, and there's a way he could figure in the defense with that role, but the Steelers need someone with both the athleticism and the coverage ability to hold up when they come up against the likes of Travis Kelce and Rob Gronkowski. Barron has shown far more of the former than the latter.

The deal: Two years, $11 million

Grade: C+

The Dolphins have mostly settled for unoffensively middling quarterback play since Dan Marino retired. Fitzpatrick is no centrist passer. The Harvard product is capable of looking like he would blow out the Patriots and then incapable of completing a pass against Yale, occasionally within the same game. Over the past decade, only one quarterback has more games with three or more interceptions than "FitzMagic" (15). And that's despite the fact that Fitzpatrick wasn't his team's regular starter in several of those seasons.

The Dolphins have basically given Fitzpatrick a two-year deal at reasonable backup money with incentives for more if they start him for any length of time. Considering that he's a 36-year-old with an injury history and a habit of selling out for first downs while scrambling in Septembers for bad football teams, it's tough to see him staying healthy for 16 games in Miami. Given that Conor McGregor was just arrested in Miami, though, the arrival of Fitzpatrick gives the UFC star a useful doppelgänger in South Beach.

Friday, March 15

The deal: One year, $8.5 million

Grade: C

Arguably the top cornerback available on the market, Darby's two-year run with the Eagles has been uneven, thanks mostly to injuries. The former Bills second-round pick suffered a dislocated ankle in his first game with the team and missed the first half of the 2017 season, then went down with a torn ACL in Philly's 27-20 loss to the Cowboys and missed the second half of the 2018 season. Darby has played just 17 games over two seasons, and while Eagles fans will have positive memories of Darby matching up against Julio Jones near the goal line in that playoff win against the Falcons, he has been a liability for stretches of his run.

The Eagles have generally been cheap with their cornerback decisions, which is why a one-year, $8.5 million contract doesn't seem to solve any matter. It's not cheap, especially for a player coming off an ACL tear. It's a one-year deal, so even if Darby does have a Pro Bowl-caliber season, he can go somewhere else in 2020. And given the injury concerns, the Eagles will lose more if he gets hurt this year as opposed to when he was making less than a million dollars this past season.

Darby still has breakout potential, and the 25-year-old could suddenly morph into a shutdown corner, but in a division with Eli Manning and Colt McCoy as two of the three other quarterbacks, the Eagles might have been smart to play it cheap at corner in the first place.

Tennessee Titans get: QB Ryan Tannehill, 2019 sixth-round pick

Miami Dolphins get: 2019 seventh-round pick, 2020 fourth-round pick

Titans grade: C+

Dolphins grade: C+

If you have aspirations of playing quarterback in the NFL, now might be a good time to get to Miami. Days after the Dolphins missed out on signing free agent Teddy Bridgewater to presumably replace Tannehill, Miami decided to respond by getting rid of its starting signal-caller anyway. Tannehill's seven-year run as Dolphins QB1 ended with Friday's trade, as he'll now become the backup to Marcus Mariota in Tennessee.

This is a very similar swap to the Case Keenum trade from earlier this offseason. Like Keenum, Tannehill was on an untenable base salary ($18.7 million) which held no trade value. The Dolphins would have been forced to cut Tannehill, but to facilitate a deal, he was willing to take a pay cut down to a $7 million base salary with incentives. The Broncos were forced to chip in $3.5 million of base salary for Keenum because they owed him guaranteed money, but while the Dolphins didn't owe Tannehill any more money, they paid $5 million of the $7 million in what likely amounted to buying a better draft pick.

Tannehill saw the writing on the wall and took the sort of pay cut he would have been forced to make in free agency anyway, but in doing so, he got to ensure he would be in a promising situation. The Titans have been playoff contenders or participants three years running, and they might have made it into January with a better backup last season.

Ryan Tannehill went 42-46 as the starter for the Dolphins over seven seasons. Rich Barnes/USA TODAY Sports

After seeing Blaine Gabbert implode during the Week 17 play-in loss to the Colts, the Titans couldn't let him return as Mariota's backup for 2019. Tennessee should have prioritized the backup position earlier, of course, given how frequently Mariota gets injured. Tannehill was never stunning as Miami's starter, and he has his own ugly injury history, but his mobility and comfort booting off play-action make him a good fit for what this Titans scheme is likely to look like under Arthur Smith, the team's latest offensive coordinator.

There might even be a bit of a quarterback controversy if Mariota gets hurt and Tannehill plays well in the starter's absence. Over the past four seasons, Tannehill has posted a 91.1 passer rating to Mariota's 89.4 mark. Mariota's Total QBR is much better, owing in part to his superiority as a runner, but both Mariota and Tannehill are in the final years of their respective deals. The Titans organization is making this move for its own peace of mind, not Mariota's.

I would grade this higher for Tennessee's side if the Titans had managed to swap late-round picks and paid the extra cash for Tannehill's base salary. The Dolphins had no leverage here; because Tannehill needed to take a pay cut to make any sort of trade palatable, the former first-round pick essentially had a no-trade clause. Given that there weren't any starting jobs out there, it's hard to imagine that he would have preferred any situation to the one behind Mariota in Tennessee.

From the Dolphins' side, it seems clear they're going to make a move for a quarterback this offseason, given that the only passers left on their roster are Jake Rudock and Luke Falk. They struck out on Bridgewater, and while there were rumors linking the Dolphins to Kyler Murray in the beginning of the draft process, the Heisman Trophy winner's meteoric rise up the charts means he might come off the board to the Cardinals at pick No. 1.

Independent of the Dolphins' landing Murray, Dwayne Haskins or another young quarterback in the draft, Miami probably needs to add at least one competent veteran for 2019. It's slim pickings in the free-agent market; the most plausible addition is Floridian Blake Bortles, who was cut by the Jaguars this week.

I don't need to tell you Bortles has warts, and the Dolphins wouldn't make a long-term commitment to the former third overall pick, but it's at least worth remembering that Bortles threw for four touchdowns in Week 2 against the Patriots, who were coordinated by new Dolphins coach Brian Flores. You can understand why the Dolphins would have preferred Bridgewater, but unless they want to bring back Brock Osweiler or take a flyer on AJ McCarron or Sam Bradford, Bortles is actually the best option available.

The deal: One year, $3.5 million

Grade: A

In the game of free safety musical chairs, the odd man out was Clinton-Dix, who neither Green Bay nor Washington seemed particularly impressed with during an uneven 2018 season. I suspect Clinton-Dix could have found a multiyear deal on the market if he really wanted one, but when he saw what guys like Landon Collins and Tyrann Mathieu were getting in free agency, you might imagine the idea of putting a better year on tape before heading back into free agency in 2020 would be appealing.

It's difficult to think of a better landing spot than Chicago, where the Bears will be able to surround him with one of the best defenses in football. New defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano and Clinton-Dix could take the blame if an otherwise-returning Bears defense declines in 2019 when the real causes are more likely to be regression toward the mean in terms of takeaway rates and health, but that's no reason not to make this signing. The Bears might still want to draft a safety to play in 2020, since they won't likely have the space to re-sign Clinton-Dix if he returns to form, but this is about as team-friendly of a deal as you'll see for a young player with Pro Bowl upside.

The deal: Three years, $24 million

Grade: C-

Okafor is a useful defensive end. He hasn't quite achieved the heights of his eight-sack campaign with the Cardinals in 2014, but the Texas product can be a useful contributor as a rotation end. The Saints traded up to grab Marcus Davenport after Okafor tore his Achilles in November of 2017, but the veteran held onto his starting job for all 16 games.

The Chiefs are paying Okafor $8 million per year in a year in which the draft is full of edge rushers for a player who hasn't moved the needle as a pro. It feels like Kansas City either needed to be more ambitious as its tries to replace Dee Ford and Justin Houston and go after a star, or go cheaper and try to just flood its roster with depth. Okafor is somewhere in the middle.

The deal: One year, $3.5 million

Grade: B

Through the end of 2017, it looked like Poole was a candidate for an extension with the Falcons. In 2018, things went so far south that the Falcons decided against even tendering their nickel corner as a restricted free agent when an original-rounder tender would have only cost $2 million. The Jets found Poole to be worth something more and gave the 26-year-old a one-year deal for nearly twice that figure. When nickel corners like Justin Coleman are going for $9 million per season in free agency, I'd rather take my chances with Poole and hope that 2018 was just a poor season.

Thursday, March 14

The deal: One year, $7.25 million fully guaranteed with $5 million in incentives

Grade: C+

Bridgewater wants to play quarterback. Over the past three seasons, he has thrown 25 regular-season passes while recovering from the catastrophic knee injury that cost him his starting job in Minnesota. The former Louisville star signed with the Jets last offseason, was waylaid when they drafted Sam Darnold, and then impressed enough in preseason to get sent to the Saints, where he sat behind Drew Brees all season short a Week 17 start.

At the moment, there is technically one starting job open, and it's with the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins haven't officially cut Ryan Tannehill, and they might keep him around given that nobody seems to want their quarterback spot, but if Bridgewater wanted the No. 1 job in Miami, it could have been his. It's possible he was afraid that the Dolphins were going to sign him and then draft a quarterback, which would have meant a lame-duck job.

You might argue that a lame-duck spot in Miami is better than sitting behind Brees in New Orleans, but there's something interesting to look at when you check out how Brees performed in 2018 ...

Split Cmp Att Cmp% Yds Y/Att TD INT Rating QBR Games

1-11 272 356 76.4% 3135 8.8 29 2 127.3 88.2 Games

12-17 146 211 69.2% 1407 6.7 7 5 88.7 55.4

From the prime-time loss to the Cowboys on, Brees went from playing like a MVP to playing like a McCown. Brees was poor in the playoffs, missing open receivers and even at times struggling to pull the trigger on his successful throws.

Could it just be randomness over what amounts to a six-game sample? Of course. Would I worry about a middling end to the season if Brees was 28? Not at all. He's 40, though, and when great quarterbacks get to this point of their careers, they don't often decline gradually. They're incredible for a long time and they suddenly lose it without regaining their old form.

Peyton Manning, as an example, posted a 107.8 passer rating with 36 touchdowns and nine picks through the first 12 games of 2014. Over the next month, he posted a passer rating of 76.8, with three touchdowns against six picks, then posted a 75.5 rating in a playoff loss to the Colts. Manning was a replacement-level passer the following season, and while the Broncos won the Super Bowl, he was benched for Brock Osweiler along the way and was a passenger even after he returned to the lineup.

Teddy Bridgewater was traded to the Saints from the Jets before the 2018 season, and he'll get another season behind Drew Brees in 2019. AP Photo/Julio Cortez

I'm not saying Brees is done. (I'm tempted to shout that louder for posterity's sake.) I'll believe Brees is done if I see him play that way for another six or eight games to start 2019. What I would say, though, is that there's at least something to be worried about with Brees' play for the first time in years. The chances that he's not going to play like the Hall of Famer we all know are higher in 2019 than they were in 2018 or 2017. And if you're the Saints, well, you might be willing to pay a premium to make sure that you have a starting-caliber backup to fill in if Brees isn't his usual self.

The other interesting thing here is that the Saints have Bridgewater signed to only a one-year deal, so if Brees returns to form and stays healthy, Bridgewater will just collect his $7.5 million and head to free agency again next year, with another year of his prime spent on the sidelines. I'm surprised both sides couldn't come to terms on a longer-term deal, perhaps one that would void if Bridgewater hit certain escalators. The Saints might view Bridgewater as their long-term replacement for Brees, but right now, he's back to biding his time.

The deal: Four years, $37 million with $23.5 million guaranteed

Grade: D+

Do you remember "Memento," the movie in which Guy Pearce's short-term memory was destroyed and he lost the ability to remember anything in the recent past? Is it possible the Giants are struggling with the same condition? Days after trading Odell Beckham Jr. to signal that they were going to build around Saquon Barkley and the running game, the Giants reversed course and gave Tate a four-year deal with $23.5 million fully guaranteed at signing.

It's bizarre for many reasons. To start, while the franchise buried Beckham on his way out of town and called him a distraction, the Giants responded by signing a wideout who was cited while with the Seahawks for breaking into a doughnut store and who reportedly got into a fistfight with Percy Harvin the week before the Super Bowl. (To be clear, I don't think those are actual character concerns, but they're more meaningful than, say, getting into a fight with a kicking net or simulating urination during a touchdown celebration.)

Golden Tate could be the Giants' No. 1 wide receiver in 2019. Elsa/Getty Images

Tate is a strange fit for a team in the middle of a rebuild, even if the Giants want to pretend otherwise. He's a tough receiver and a willing blocker, but his best spot in the lineup is in the slot, where he caught 150 passes from 2015-17. That was the sixth-highest total in the NFL over that time frame. The Giants already have a slot receiver in Sterling Shepard, who is far cheaper than Tate; the Oklahoma product has 149 receptions in the slot over his first three seasons in the league, which is third in the NFL. We already saw what happened last season in Philadelphia when the Eagles traded for Tate and were stuck trying to fit Tate, Nelson Agholor, Jordan Matthews, and Zach Ertz in the slot for targets. Tate got lost in the shuffle.

Furthermore, Tate turns 31 in August. He's smart enough to get by without every ounce of athleticism, but the Giants guaranteed him enough money to make this a very expensive two-year deal or a reasonably expensive three-year pact. The Giants are blindly backing Eli Manning, who will receive a $5 million bonus Saturday, for 2019; even if we assume that they'll have a new quarterback in 2020, Tate is not going to be a long-term solution for a team that needs to be looking for long-term solutions right now. General manager Dave Gettleman is papering over the holes in this offense with trades and free-agent signings, just as Jerry Reese did with the defense years ago.

In addition, by signing Tate, the Giants are going to lose the fifth-round compensatory pick they got when the Falcons signed Jamon Brown. (A previous version of this section incorrectly stated that they would lose the third-round pick they'll receive for Landon Collins.) They need to be targeting young talent and draft picks to build around Barkley. While Tate is a talented player, this isn't the right move for Big Blue.

The deal: One year, $3.6 million

Grade: B-

Everyone wants to see Verrett succeed, and with good reason. The TCU product impressed as a rookie and made the Pro Bowl in 2015, but injuries have ground his career to a halt. In 2014, he tore his labrum and missed 10 games. In 2015, he missed two games with foot and groin ailments. In 2016, he tore his ACL after four games, and knee pain limited him to one game in 2017 before he underwent another surgery. Last year, Verrett tore his Achilles during the Chargers' conditioning test. He missed 43 of the Chargers' past 48 games.

I'm surprised the 49ers would look toward the 5-foot-10 Verrett, if only because they tend to prefer taller cornerbacks, although K'Waun Williams is 5-foot-9. This is obviously a lottery ticket on a player who is years removed from playing regular football, although it's an expensive one given the circumstances. If this is a one-year deal for less money with a maximum of $3.6 million, it would make more sense, but if the 49ers are paying $3.6 million, they should have been able to get a second year in the case that Verrett does stay healthy. It's a high-upside move by the Niners.

The deal: Two years, $8 million

Grade: C

Left with nowhere to turn after Derrius Guice went down with a torn ACL over the summer, Washington signed Peterson off the street and got totally reasonable production. The 33-year-old finished 28th in Success Rate and fumbled only three times on 271 touches, which had been a huge problem for the future Hall of Famer; since his 15-game sabbatical in 2014, Peterson had fumbled 11 times on just 564 touches.

Peterson has earned another job, and he's not a terrible fit for Washington's scheme. At the same time, though, what are we really doing here? Guice is back, and Washington used a second-round pick on him in the 2018 draft, suggesting it saw the LSU standout as a likely starter. Washington's starting quarterbacks are Case Keenum and Colt McCoy. The team is probably not going anywhere.

Isn't this time to go see if you can develop your next young running back? Peterson has gotten cranky when he hasn't been getting regular carries in years past, and he doesn't offer much value as a receiver or play special teams. The best-case scenario is that we get another 2018 season out of him, but even if that happens, it doesn't move the needle for this team.

The deal: One year, up to $6 million

Grade: A

Williams is coming off of a serious knee injury that cost the 26-year-old virtually the entire 2018 season, but he was a second-team All-Pro in 2017. Given the thirst for useful tackles gripping most NFL teams these days and the presence of former Panthers executives with subpar offensive lines in Buffalo and New York, I figured he would have a nice market and end up getting a multiyear deal, even with the knee injury.

Instead, Williams will be going back to Carolina on a one-year deal that maxes out around $6 million. You can understand why he would want to bet on himself and try to hit the market after a healthy season, since he probably would be looking at a four-year deal in the $52 million range if he were healthy.

It's an easy victory for the Panthers, whose offensive line concerns look a lot better after re-signing Williams and adding Matt Paradis. This move likely displaces Taylor Moton, who impressed in his first season as a starter while filling in for Williams at right tackle. Where Moton goes next will be telling.

Then-GM Dave Gettleman made a huge mistake two years ago in signing left tackle Matt Kalil to a five-year, $55.5 million deal that was unsupported by tape, statistics or medicine. Kalil's $7 million base salary guarantees on Friday, and while you might think the Panthers would cut the former Vikings draftee, they also would owe $14.7 million in dead money on their 2019 cap if they did so. Oops.

If they keep Kalil, you would figure that the Panthers will give him one more shot at left tackle after he missed the entirety of the 2018 season. Moton would likely kick inside to play left guard, which would push Greg Van Roten into a reserve role. I think their best five-man line, though, is probably with Moton at left tackle, Van Roten at guard, and Kalil on the bench. It will be interesting to see if Carolina feels the same way.

Philadelphia Eagles get: WR DeSean Jackson, 2020 seventh-round pick

Tampa Bay Buccaneers get: 2019 sixth-round pick

Eagles grade: B- B

Bucs grade: C

UPDATE: As part of the trade for Jackson, the Eagles restructured his deal and paid him a $3 million bonus while handing him a three-year, $27 million contract. Jackson was set to have a $10 million base salary in 2019, but this deal should lower his cap hit, which will help Philadelphia if it wants to add a veteran or two on defense.

Even after trading for Jackson, the Eagles interestingly decided to hold onto Nelson Agholor, whose $9.4 million base salary is now guaranteed. Agholor might have a small amount of trade value, but it looks like the Eagles will move forward with Agholor, Jackson and Alshon Jeffery as their three wideouts in 2019. Philly will likely have more than $30 million in cap space devoted to their three receivers, which is a lot for a team whose best formation in 2019 might be with Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert on the field together. Strictly looking at the Jackson deal, though, this is a good move for the Eagles.

DeSean Jackson had only 41 catches and four touchdowns last season. Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Original write-up: Four-plus years after being ignominiously released by the Eagles in May 2014, Jackson's returning home to Philly. By trading for the player on whom they once used a second-round pick, the Eagles fill a hole they've struggled to nail down since Carson Wentz arrived in town in 2016. While Wentz ranks eighth in Total QBR since the start of 2016 on throws within 15 yards of the line of scrimmage, the fourth-year passer is 22nd in the same category on throws 16-plus yards downfield. The Eagles have tried to create downfield opportunities by adding options such as Torrey Smith and Mike Wallace, and Mack Hollins showed some promise during his rookie campaign before getting hurt last year, but none of them can compare to Jackson as a deep weapon.

The on-field fit is perfect. With Alshon Jeffery, Zach Ertz and Jackson, the Eagles have a classic X-Y-Z receiving corps. There isn't the overlap in skill set and desired role there was last season with Ertz, Golden Tate and Nelson Agholor. There also doesn't appear to be a long-term investment, given that Jackson was entering the final year of his deal at $10 million. Chris Mortensen tweeted that Jackson would take home $13 million in 2019 as part of a restructure, but it's unclear whether the Eagles added more years to the deal to lower the cap hit in 2019 or simply gave Jackson a raise to stay out of free agency.

The big concerns for Jackson are age and injury, but one seems more worrisome than the other. Jackson led the league with 18.9 yards per reception last season, marking the fourth time in 11 years that the 32-year-old managed to pull off that feat. Jackson's average pass attempt traveled 19.1 yards in the air, which was the highest figure in the league by 2.5 yards for someone with 50 targets or more. He still stretches the field just fine. Unless he falls off a cliff during the offseason, Jackson should be a vertical threat for the Eagles in 2019.

Injuries seem like a bigger cause for worry. Jackson hasn't completed a 16-game season since he left Philadelphia, as he has missed 14 games the past five seasons with various ailments. There's no single body part ailing Jackson, either -- he has missed time with everything from shoulder and hamstring issues to a thumb injury, which cost the former Cal star multiple weeks last season. If Jackson's price tag for 2019 is $13 million, he needs to stay healthy to return excess value on that deal.

I'm not really enthused by this move for the Bucs, who just hired a head coach who loves to throw the ball downfield, in Bruce Arians. If you're gonna play "no risk it, no biscuit" offense, who represents a better fit than DeSean Jackson? The Bucs desperately tried to manufacture a trade market for Jackson and failed before basically trading him for the smallest possible compensation. They'll move forward with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin as their top two wideouts, though I still think they could look to make a move for former Arians pupil John Brown as their deep threat.

The deal: Four years, $54 million with $27 million semi-guaranteed

Grade: D+

UPDATE: This is similar to the Jerick McKinnon contract from last season, where it's really a one-year pact with options. The 49ers will pay Alexander $14.5 million for the 2019 season, which is still way too much given that the franchise tag for linebackers is $15.5 million and that's mostly based on pass-rushers. After that, the 49ers can go year to year with cap figures of $13.1 million, $14.4 million and $14.5 million.

Original write-up: The 49ers have a habit of making signings like this under general manager John Lynch. They fall in love with a player and pay him like the player they imagine him being as opposed to the player the rest of the market is negotiating against. These moves generally don't work out. In 2017, it was Malcolm Smith and Kyle Juszczyk. Last year, it was Jerick McKinnon, who missed all of his debut season with the team because of a torn ACL.

The closest example of this for the 49ers in the draft was with now-departed inside linebacker Reuben Foster. After the 2017 draft, when the Niners traded down one spot with the Bears and drafted pass-rusher Solomon Thomas, Lynch traded back into the bottom of the first round to draft Foster. Afterward, Lynch suggested that Foster was the third-highest player on their draft board and that if the Bears had taken Thomas with the second overall pick, he would have chosen Foster third.

In the end, the rest of the league let Foster fall to 31, where the 49ers grabbed him for an ill-fated run at inside linebacker. The Niners cut Foster in November after multiple incidents of domestic abuse, and while the 49ers had some success with Fred Warner in the middle last season, it's not a surprise that they wanted to go after a long-term solution at middle linebacker this offseason.

Former fourth-round pick Kwon Alexander could play inside or outside linebacker for the 49ers. Mark LoMoglio/Icon Sportswire

For a linebacker with one Pro Bowl appearance (as an injury replacement) coming off a torn ACL, though, this price tag has to be considered exorbitant. Alexander now has the largest annual average salary for any off-ball linebacker in the league at $13.5 million, although C.J. Mosley will likely top that figure when he signs a free-agent deal later this week. It's difficult to believe the 49ers couldn't have found similar production at a much cheaper cost, especially as veterans such as Zach Brown and Brandon Marshall are expected to hit the market.

It's tough to judge Alexander's production in Tampa, in part because the defense around him was so bad. He missed 18 games over his four seasons with injuries and a four-game PED suspension, and while that's not ideal, it gives us a reasonable sample to see how the Bucs' defense performed with and without him on the field.

The Bucs were unquestionably better with Alexander around, but they weren't great in any scenario. Tampa's run defense allowed 4.3 yards per carry and first downs on 25.3 percent of rushing attempts without Alexander on the field. With him around, the Bucs gave up 4.1 yards per carry and allowed 24.1 percent of rushing attempts to turn into first downs. The league averages over that time frame were for 4.2 yards per carry and a 22.5 percent first-down rate on running plays.

Alexander was similarly helpful against the pass, although again, it wasn't enough to push Tampa into competency. The Bucs allowed a 108.3 passer rating and a 75.5 Total QBR with Alexander off the field, which is like turning every opposing offense into Drew Brees. With Alexander, their numbers were still not great, but certainly better: Tampa gave up a passer rating of 95.3 and a Total QBR of 62.9 with him on the field.

The evidence suggests Alexander is a good linebacker. The 49ers are paying him like he's a threat to be a first-team All-Pro linebacker every season, and that just isn't borne out by Alexander's career. A torn ACL is hardly a death knell for careers in the modern NFL, but it wouldn't be shocking if he got off to a slow start next season, given that he tore up his knee in October. The 49ers will likely have a team-friendly structure on this deal, and I suspect that Alexander's $27 million in guarantees aren't fully locked in at the time he signs his deal, but this deal is solving a problem most teams address for far less.

Wednesday, March 13

The deal: Two years, $10 million

Grade: B+

This is a good price for the 49ers, given that Coleman was probably expecting a longer contract with more than $10 million in guarantees when the free-agent period started. San Francisco was also reportedly in with a serious bid on Le'Veon Bell, but the former Steelers back chose to join the Jets instead.

I still think the 49ers could have gotten by just fine with Matt Breida and a draft pick at halfback, but they continue to invest in running backs with pass-catching ability in free agency. Last year's Jerick McKinnon deal saw the 49ers pay $12 million in one year for a back who had been one of the worst runners in football the previous two seasons. This signing is far more palatable, especially if it's a guarantee in the $5-6 million range.

Will the 49ers carry Coleman, McKinnon and Breida? I'm skeptical, in part because the 49ers almost surely would have cut McKinnon if they had signed Bell. Most teams want their third back to play special teams, which could be insightful. Coleman doesn't play special teams, but he's guaranteed a roster spot this season. McKinnon wasn't a regular special-teamer in Minnesota, as he suited up regularly in 2015 and was there occasionally in 2017 but didn't play in 2016. Breida suited up on special teams in 2017 for the 49ers but mostly sat them out in 2018, as he started at halfback and played through an ankle injury. The 49ers wouldn't realize any cap savings from cutting McKinnon, but they would save $3.7 million in cash. Breida will make $645,000 in the third year of his rookie deals, and I suspect he would have some trade market if the 49ers want to keep Coleman and McKinnon.

The deal: Four years, $44 million, $22 million guaranteed

Grade: B-

Williams looked to be the top wideout on the market heading into free agency, but in a market in which teams seemed desperate to add talent, the slot receivers came off the board first. It looked like Williams might head east for one of the rookie quarterbacks, but in the end, he stays in California for one more season by signing a four-year deal with the Raiders.

play 2:00 Who are the winners and losers of free agency? Bill Barnwell and Field Yates explain how Trent Brown won and Daryl Williams lost in free agency.

Derek Carr won't be able to say the Raiders haven't rebuilt his receiving corps. After heading into the offseason with Jordy Nelson and Marcell Ateman as his wideouts, Carr will be able to boast an above-average deep threat in Williams and an all-around star in Antonio Brown. Nelson should move into the slot as the third wideout, though there's a chance the Raiders move on from the 33-year-old former Packers star after an indifferent first season in Oakland.

Williams might get a slight upgrade in going from Philip Rivers to Carr. Over the past four seasons, Carr has a better QBR, passer rating and completion percentage on passes 16 or more yards downfield than his divisional rival. The Raiders don't appear very interested in re-signing Jared Cook, but they're a tight end away from an imposing receiving corps.

The deal: Four years, $15-16 million

Grade: D+

Myers spent two-plus years as the Jaguars' kicker between 2015 and 2017 and hit on 81.0 percent of his field goals. The Seahawks had Myers in camp last summer and cut him in favor of Sebastian Janikowski, who was inconsistent in his first season outside of Oakland. Myers caught on with the Jets and produced a career season, hitting 33 of his 36 field goal tries.

The chances are far greater that Myers's true field goal rate is closer to his career average of 84.3 percent than his 2018 rate of 91.7 percent, and if the former is accurate, then Myers isn't worth this sort of commitment.

The deal: Two years, $10 million

Grade: C

I'm intrigued by the fit here, given all that Bill Belichick managed to get out of Patterson last season. On offense, I think Patterson is more of a backup at multiple positions than anything else. He isn't going to start ahead of Tarik Cohen or Mike Davis at halfback or for Taylor Gabriel at wideout. But he could see 10-15 snaps across those positions per game when everyone's healthy and fill in when someone goes down.

Patterson's also an excellent return man, and while Cohen was a very good punt returner last season, Patterson should step in as Chicago's primary kick returner. This is a lot to pay for a player who unquestionably got the Belichick Bump last season, but I would imagine that Matt Nagy will be able to carve out some semblance of an offensive role from week to week for Patterson

The deal: Three years, $25.5 million

Grade: C-

Do you remember watching the Chiefs on defense the past couple of seasons and remarking that one of their cornerbacks not named Marcus Peters was worth more than $8 million per season? The Steelers thought otherwise, and while they have a desperate need for help at cornerback across from Joe Haden, paying Nelson this sort of money leaves the Steelers with hope as opposed to a solution.

Nelson was Kansas City's best cornerback in 2018, and you might argue that Bob Sutton didn't do a great job of developing his young talent, but Nelson isn't the sort of cornerback whom I'd be comfortable paying this much money. Nelson was a weird fit with the Chiefs, given his 5-foot-11, 194-pound frame and Kansas City's propensity for man coverage under Sutton. The Steelers will have to hope that the 26-year-old is better when given the chance to play zone more frequently.

With Nelson, Haden and slot corner Mike Hilton all under contract, it looks like the Steelers are giving up on Artie Burns for the foreseeable future. The 2016 first-round pick was being pegged for stardom as recently as last offseason, and the Steelers might have to consider trading Burns while he still has some value as a reclamation project. This deal also cancels out the comp pick the Steelers were going to earn for Jesse James, though it's not a big enough contract to wipe away the pick Pittsburgh should get for Le'Veon Bell.

The deal: Three years, $25 million with $12 million guaranteed

Grade: B-

The Colts are retaining one of the biggest breakouts from their impressive season, and they're doing so at a relatively modest price. Desir struggled in Cleveland and bounced around the league before ending up in Indy, but his size and ability to play the sideline in Indy's Cover-2 last season made the Lindenwood product a valuable corner. At 28, he should still have plenty of football left to go.

You might compare this deal to Justin Coleman's contract in Detroit, given that Coleman also bounced around the league before finding a home. Coleman has two years of above-average play to Desir's one, and he's three years younger. Those are advantages. Coleman also seems likely limited to the slot, while Desir can play outside, which is generally a more valuable deal. Desir's deal also guarantees him $12 million, whereas Coleman's contract has $18 million in practical guarantees through two seasons.

The deal: Three years, $25.2 million

Grade: C+

The Jets were excited to bring back Anderson, who has flashed with stretches of great play during his career and racked up seven sacks on 668 defensive snaps during his first season in New York. The former Colts draftee also produced 16 knockdowns last season, so there's nothing particularly fluky about that sack total. I'm not sure I would call him a great pure pass-rusher from watching him on tape, but the 6-foot-6 Stanford product has a good motor. Most of his sacks were second efforts or came on plays where he recognized that a quarterback was about to try to leave the pocket.

The worry with Anderson has been health, as 2018's 16-game season marked the first time Anderson has been able to make it past 11 games in a campaign. He suffered a torn ACL in 2015, and while he made it back for 2016, he struggled with the injury and was never 100 percent. In 2017, Anderson went down in midseason with a fractured larynx, which is about as freakish as freak injuries get. The Jets might run the risk of paying for an outlier season of health, but I like his fit as a 3-4 end in New York.

The deal: Three years, $23 million with $10 million guaranteed

Grade: C+

In the absence of a Patriots player to sign, the Titans instead opted for someone who has gone up against the Patriots for a decade. The seemingly ageless Wake left the Dolphins amid their rebuilding project, and while I thought he might look for a perennial playoff contender to join on a one-year deal, he will end up joining a Tennessee team which came one win away from back-to-back playoff appearances.

Because Wake spent years in the CFL before making his move to Miami, he's older than might you think; the Penn State product turned 37 in January. It seemed reasonable to count him out after he tore his Achilles in 2015, but Wake responded with a Pro Bowl 11.5-sack season in 2016 and a 10.5-sack season the following season.

Was 2018 the year Wake finally slowed down? Early on, it seemed likely, given that the onetime BC Lions star racked up just one sack and three quarterback hits in his first four games before missing two weeks with a knee scope. He wasn't his usual self in his first two games back, but over the final half of the year, Classic Wake returned. The five-time Pro Bowler generated five sacks and 14 knockdowns over the final eight games of the season, with the latter figure ranking 14th in the NFL.

I'm not sure we can count on the second-half version of Wake showing up, although it's also fair to say he's defied expectations before. In a draft full of edge rushing talent, too, I think I'd rather see the Titans go after a linebacker in the first round to play across from Harold Landry and go after more of a rotational rusher in reserve. It would be a better deal if the guarantee was more in the $6-7 million range.

The deal: Four years, $55 million with $32 million fully guaranteed

Grade: B

Well, if the Ravens wanted to help fans get over the losses of Eric Weddle and C.J. Mosley, this is a step in the right direction. Baltimore is replacing a very good veteran safety with arguably the best safety of his generation in Thomas, who is likely to end up in Canton one day. It's not quite as sure of a bet as it once was when Thomas was a perennial first-team All-Pro pick from 2012-14, but Thomas has been a game-changer when healthy.

Over the past three seasons, even as his influence has conceivably waned because of injuries, the Seahawks have been a much better defense with their star safety on the field:

Filter Cmp Att Cmp% PsYds Y/Att TD Int Rating Total

QBR Thomas

on field 563 936 60.1% 5,799 6.7 30 30 77.2 46.6 Thomas

off field 448 699 64.1% 5,002 7.7 31 7 98.2 52.1

That interception split is stunning. Thomas is a ball hawk -- the Texas product had three in what amounts to three-plus games last season before breaking his leg in Week 4 -- but his presence in the deep middle of the field also allowed his teammates to be more aggressive attacking underneath routes, knowing that they had a monster lurking over the top.

If the Ravens get the healthy Thomas of old, this is an easy win. There's no guarantee Thomas will be that guy over the length of this deal. He turns 30 in May and is coming off two different broken legs in the past three seasons. The Seahawks clearly didn't think he was going to age well, which was one of the reasons they didn't re-sign him.

This is also a big investment when you see the guaranteed figure. Almost 60 percent (58.1) of the total money is guaranteed, which is the largest percentage for a veteran safety with a deal of $20 million or more on an active deal. Most four-year free-agent deals are really two-year pacts. This is more likely to be a three-year contract. If any veteran's upside is worth betting on, though, it's Thomas.

The deal: Three years, $15 million

Grade: C

I'm less enthused about Baltimore's second move of the afternoon, which saw the team invest in a running back by signing Ingram to a three-year deal. The guarantee could end up pushing this grade in either direction; it's not as bad of a contract if it's a $5-6 million guarantee on a one-year pact, but if it's closer to $10 million guaranteed, this would be even worse.

After struggling throughout most of his rookie deal, Ingram rounded into form and emerged as a valuable rotation back in New Orleans. He has worked hard to improve as a receiver, and while he's not going to be mistaken for Alvin Kamara, he is a viable screen-and-safety valve option out of the backfield.

Former Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram had 55 total touchdowns in eight years in New Orleans. Ryan Kang via AP

I don't love the fit with Ingram and the Ravens. For one, Baltimore is going to cancel out one of its compensatory picks by signing Ingram, who wasn't cut by the Saints. It's true that Thomas' contract will cancel out a higher compensatory selection, but the chances of finding a safety like Thomas after June 1 or in the draft are slim to none. It's far easier to find running backs, and there will be useful veterans at the position who get cut in the weeks to come. The Ravens have found effective running backs for nothing in recent years by signing the likes of Justin Forsett, Alex Collins and Gus Edwards for peanuts.

It's true that the Ravens are going to a run-heavy offense with Lamar Jackson as their quarterback, and having a veteran back like Ingram will help . Given that Jackson spent the vast majority of his time in the pistol last season, though, I would at least be a little anxious to see how Ingram adjusts. Over the past five seasons, more than 85 percent of Ingram's carries have come from under center. He has averaged 4.8 yards per attempt on those runs, a figure that dropped to 4.4 when Drew Brees was in the shotgun or pistol. Ingram has had a higher EPA+ percentage when Brees hasn't been under center, so it might not be a big concern, but taking a rare carry out of the shotgun and getting virtually every run out of the pistol is a different ballgame.

Ingram turns 30 in December, and while he hasn't had a huge workload as a pro, multiyear deals for backs around this age rarely work out. I can see why the Ravens wanted to add a back, and Ingram might very well be able to translate his success in New Orleans to Baltimore, but the Ravens probably would have been better off using this $5 million to help re-sign future free agents such as Matt Judon and Patrick Onwuasor, or by going after Justin Houston to help their edge rush.

The deal: Three years, $22.5 million with $11.3 million guaranteed at signing

Grade: B

If the Texans were going to lose Tyrann Mathieu, Gipson at nearly half of the price is a good fallback plan. It was a bit of a surprise when the Jaguars cut the 28-year-old safety, especially because they cut fellow starter Barry Church in midseason from what had been the league's most dominant secondary the previous season.

Gipson made his name in Cleveland as a ball hawk after intercepting 11 passes in 27 games from 2013-14, but even given legitimate ball skills, he hasn't been able to keep up that interception rate. He has just eight picks over the ensuing 61 games, although he did knock away seven passes in each of the past two seasons. He also didn't miss a game during his three years in Jacksonville, so for a sturdy, above-average veteran safety, the Texans came away with a good price given the rest of the market. If Gipson can spike a five-interception season during the deal, even better.

49ers get: OLB/DE Dee Ford

Chiefs get: 2020 second-round pick

49ers grade: B-

Chiefs grade: D+

I don't want to make this grade a referendum on the hiring of new Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, but it's hard to separate the hire from what happened here. Ford, coming off a 13-sack season, was reportedly dealt to the 49ers because he didn't fit into Spagnuolo's 4-3 scheme. With the news that the Chiefs were cutting Justin Houston for cap reasons earlier this week, a team whose secondary would politely be characterized as a moving sidewalk to the end zone last season is now suddenly down its top two edge rushers from a year ago.

It would be foolish, to some extent, to hire a defensive coordinator whose scheme doesn't fit the personnel you spent years trying to acquire for a 3-4. It would be really foolish, though, to hire a defensive coordinator who hasn't been good for a long stretch of time and then mold your new defense to his scheme. Since Spagnuolo left the Giants after the 2008 season, he has produced exactly one defense with an above-average DVOA in seven tries as a defensive coordinator or head coach.

That season came in 2016, when the Giants loaded up on free agents and just about everyone on their defense stayed healthy. They finished second in defensive DVOA. Otherwise, Spagnuolo's defenses have ranked no better than 19th, with three bottom-three finishes and an average rank of worse than 26th in those six other seasons. He has pieced together one good season, and that was when the defense was full of big-money additions. The Chiefs just traded away their two best pass-rushers, though they added safety Tyrann Mathieu.

Dee Ford had 30.5 sacks in five seasons with the Chiefs. Thomas J. Russo/USA TODAY Sports

What's really interesting, then, is that the 49ers are trading for Ford, given that they play a 4-3 base defense under Robert Saleh. In a league in which teams are in their nickel package more often than not, anyway, the difference between 3-4 and 4-3 for edge rushers has meant less than ever before. The Chiefs, notably, were in sub-packages with five or more defensive backs on more than 75 percent of their defensive snaps last season.

The interesting thing is figuring out where the 49ers plan on using Ford, because it could reveal their plans for the second overall pick in the draft. They have an excellent interior disruptor in DeForest Buckner, but they haven't gotten much from their edge rushers. In 2017, their leading sack total was six, from now-retired veteran Elvis Dumervil. Last season, Cassius Marsh picked up 5.5 sacks as the weakside pass-rusher, in what Saleh and other veterans of the Seattle defensive scheme refer to as the Leo role.

In one scenario, the 49ers could use Ford as a strong-side linebacker on early downs before moving him into a pure pass-rushing role as a defensive end in obvious passing situations, similar to how the Seahawks used Bruce Irvin during most of his time in Seattle. The 252-pound Ford is similarly sized to the 250-pound Irvin, and while the Chiefs were concerned about his ability to hold up against the run as a 4-3 end, getting him off of the line of scrimmage and behind former first-round pick Arik Armstead would make his life easier.

Given that the 49ers acquired Ford and then gave him a five-year, $87.5 million extension to stick around in San Francisco, it's hardly out of the question that they see him as their pass-rush solution at the Leo spot. It's way easier to find a strongside linebacker who can occasionally rush the quarterback than it is to find a pure pass-rusher; this would be an absolutely enormous amount of money to pay for Ford if he lines up off of the line of scrimmage most first downs.

Ford, out of Auburn, has been productive enough as a pass-rusher to justify the role. He had a 10-sack season in his first year as a full-time starter in 2016, and while injuries held him to two sacks in six games the following season, he posted a career season with 13 sacks and 29 knockdowns last season. The Chiefs faced a league-high 684 pass plays, 14 more than any other team and 92 more than the league average, but those are excellent numbers regardless.

The price tag suggests the 49ers are trading for Ford to be their Leo. If that's the case, they might be open for business with the second overall pick. The Cardinals have the top pick and appear to be actively making eyes at Kyler Murray. If they do go for the Oklahoma quarterback, the 49ers would theoretically have their choice of star edge rushers between Nick Bosa and Josh Allen, each of whom would figure as a possible Leo. If the Cardinals go for Bosa or Allen, the 49ers would still have a shot at one of the two options, but if they're paying Ford to be the Leo, they're most likely out of the edge-rushing market.

That leaves San Francisco in an interesting spot with its pick. It doesn't need a quarterback, which would rule it out on Murray or Haskins. The Niners probably don't want to take a tackle in the first round for the second consecutive year after drafting Mike McGlinchey in 2018, even with Joe Staley's advancing age, so that would wipe Jonah Williams off the board. They could target Alabama defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, who might be the best player at any position in this draft, but his role in the lineup presumably would come at the expense of Solomon Thomas, whom Lynch took with the third overall pick two years ago. Thomas has struggled, but the 49ers are unlikely to give up on a player they drafted that high.

We're left with one other scenario: Trade down, presumably to a team which wants to grab either Haskins, Quinnen Williams or their pick of the edge rushers. That would be an ideal move for the 49ers, especially given that cornerbacks like Greedy Williams and Deandre Baker should be on the board after the top six picks come off.

As for the Chiefs, a team which should be stockpiling talent around Patrick Mahomes while the MVP is on a rookie deal has mostly been shedding pieces this offseason. Kansas City's top edge rusher as of now is 2018 second-rounder Breeland Speaks, who had 1.5 sacks and eight knockdowns as a rookie. He might turn into a great player, but it would be lunacy to head into the season with Speaks as the top defensive end. The Chiefs can use the draft to go after one of the many edge rushers available, but this trade would have made more sense if they had been able to extract San Francisco's second-rounder in the 2019 draft as opposed to next year's second-rounder. Could they use the money earmarked for Ford to get more defensive help? There is no player as promising as Ford left in the free-agent pool.

The deal: Four years, $52.5 million with $35 million guaranteed

Grade: C-

If you could go back to the summer of 2018 and tell Bell that his holdout would net an offer with an average annual salary just north of $13 million in free agency, would he be excited? My suspicion is no. I don't think his gambit to pass on signing a $14.5 million franchise tag from the Steelers and sit out the 2018 season worked for a number of reasons.

Bell's new deal comes in lower than most observers would have expected by just about every measure. He got $5 million less in his extension than Todd Gurley picked up from the Rams, and that was a deal signed with two years of cost control left before L.A. even got to the possibility of a franchise tag. Even more surprising, though, is that Bell's deal averages just $125,000 per year more than the three-year, $39 million extension David Johnson signed with the Cardinals before last season. Johnson had one year left on his rookie contract, had just one year with elite production, and was coming off of a season in which he went down with a dislocated wrist in Week 1.

If you slice the $14.5 million Bell left on the table out of the contract, you might instead call this a four-year, $38 million deal. That would still make Bell the league's third-highest paid back behind Gurley and Johnson, but it would leave him closer to the likes of Devonta Freeman than it would to Gurley. Bell's deal can reportedly hit $61 million with incentives, which would get him over the $15 million per year number that was commonly thrown around before this free-agent period, but it's unclear how likely those incentives are to be hit.

Le'Veon Bell sat out the entire 2018 season because he wanted a new contract. Jorge Lemus/NurPhoto/Getty Images

As CBS Sports' Joel Corry noted in February, given the five-year, $70 million deal Bell reportedly turned down from the Steelers, he didn't make this new contract work. Since he was already in line to make $14.5 million on the tag, he rejected an offer that would have paid him an additional $55.5 million over four seasons. Not only did Bell pass up the $14.5 million from the tag, but the offer he ended up getting on the market didn't even hit what the remainder of Pittsburgh's offer would have been on a long-term deal.

Bell might respond by pointing out that Pittsburgh's deal didn't have the sort of guaranteed money he was hoping for. As I mentioned when breaking down the Antonio Brown contract, Pittsburgh traditionally guarantees only signing bonuses in their deals. Bell would likely have had a first-year roster bonus in his deal, which would have added extra guarantees, but the Steelers would not have come up with an offer that would have actually guaranteed the $35 million he will get from the Jets without totally breaking away from their typical contractual structure. As we saw with Brown, that wasn't going to happen.

While Bell took a year off and was able to rest his body from the wear and tear of football, Corry makes a good point about the aging rate of halfbacks. Bell essentially traded his age-26 season, where he was guaranteed $14.5 million, for a shot at adding time to his career and having a fresher season after his contract is up. Veteran backs on the wrong side of 30 rarely get meaningful money in their deals, and it would be tough to imagine a scenario in which Bell ends up getting $14.5 million for his age-31 campaign after this deal is up.

Corry suggests in his piece that Bell would have needed to come away with a four-year, $72.5 million offer in free agency to make his decision to pass up Pittsburgh's offer worth it. Bell came up $20 million short. He will sleep just fine at night with this offer from the Jets, and it's going to be an afterthought when we talk about Bell's career a decade from now, but if you're wondering why his market wasn't as robust as he expected, let's run down the reasons:

1. The Steelers rushing' attack was just fine without him. The best thing for the 27-year-old's market value would have been if Pittsburgh's offense had collapsed in his absence. That didn't happen. Pittsburgh's offense averaged 25.2 points per game, up from its 24.4 points per contest in 2017. It declined in offensive DVOA, but only from third in the league to sixth.

The Steelers inserted James Conner and then Jaylen Samuels into the breach, and the duo outperformed the Bell we saw play out the franchise tag in 2017:

Bell in 2017: 4.0 yards per carry, with a first-down percentage of 23.1 and an EPA+ percentage of 40.5.

Conner/Samuels in 2018: 4.5 yards per carry, with a first-down percentage of 25.5 and an EPA+ percentage of 44.6.

EPA+ percentage is the percentage of carries each back had that added to the expected points the Steelers were likely to score on their respective drives.

Pittsburgh did have to change its offense to account for Bell being gone. It threw the ball more frequently, calling for passes on 67.4 percent of its snaps last season as opposed to 58.4 percent of the offensive plays in 2017. The Steelers also missed Bell as a receiver, although Conner caught 55 passes for 497 yards and averaged 7.0 yards per target, which was better than the 6.2 yards per target Bell averaged in 2017.

play 1:56 Schefter: Bell plans to sign 4-year/$52M deal with the Jets Adam Schefter reports that Le'Veon Bell plans to sign with the Jets after holding out last season.

At the same time, if we can even make a credible case that the Steelers got similar production from two backs who made a combined $1.1 million in 2018 as Pittsburgh received from a franchise-tagged Bell in 2017, there's no reason to split hairs. There's no question the smarter teams in the league looked at how Pittsburgh operated without Bell and thought that he was less impactful after looking at the offense in his absence. (The same might very well be true for Gurley in Los Angeles after C.J. Anderson's late-season run.)

2. Big running back contracts typically don't work out. Too often, teams that sign backs to hefty contracts end up regretting the deal and/or get similar production from another back on a much cheaper deal when their star is unavailable. The Rams enjoyed an excellent half-season from Gurley to start his new extension, but once the former first-rounder missed time with ankle and knee injuries, Los Angeles signed Anderson off the free-agent wire and saw him post similar production for a fraction of the cost. The Rams are going to be in the Gurley deal for a while, and he's unquestionably a great player, but they didn't really suffer in his absence.

Johnson averaged 3.6 yards per carry for the Cardinals last season. Freeman played in two games for the Falcons. LeSean McCoy averaged 3.2 yards per rush with Buffalo. Jerick McKinnon, who took home $12 million in the first year of his deal with the 49ers, never suited up for the team after tearing his ACL. Undrafted free agent Matt Breida averaged 5.3 yards per carry while battling injuries in McKinnon's place.

It's hard to find a big running back contract in recent years that worked well. The Vikings got an MVP season from Adrian Peterson's deal, but he missed nearly two full seasons with injuries and a suspension and had a third hampered by an ankle injury and a torn ACL. Arian Foster missed 23 games due to injuries over three years during his extension with the Texans. Chris Johnson averaged 5.0 yards per carry in the three years before his extension and 4.1 yards per carry in the three years after. DeMarco Murray lasted one year in Philadelphia before turning into a salary dump. Doug Martin was one of the league's worst running backs after signing his extension with the Bucs. DeAngelo Williams never topped 1,000 yards after signing a massive deal to stay in Carolina.

Marshawn Lynch is probably the best-case scenario for a contract extension after this current collective bargaining agreement was signed, but he's the exception to the rule.

3. Availability is a concern. Paying something in the range of $15 million per year to a great running back is one thing. Paying that much to a back who isn't on the field is lighting money on fire, and there are legitimate concerns about the new Jet's ability to line up for 16 games. He has done that only once in his pro career, although Bell would have made it twice in five tries if Mike Tomlin hadn't sat him for a meaningless Week 17 game in 2017 against the Browns.

Excluding that rest game, Bell has missed 16 games over five NFL seasons with various injuries, most notably a torn MCL. The ailments also prevented him from contributing to Pittsburgh's playoff runs in 2014 and 2015. He also has been suspended twice by the NFL, first for a DUI arrest, and then for missing multiple drug tests. He had the latter suspension knocked down from four games to three, which would then mean that a subsequent suspension would only count as a four-game penalty as opposed to a 10-game ban, but any team acquiring Bell would be worried about the possibility of another suspension.

4. There aren't many teams that need running back help right now. When you consider that Mark Ingram, Tevin Coleman and Jay Ajayi are all still free agents, the running back market is flooded with supply against limited demand. How many teams really have a hole?

I saw only four teams that could justify making a serious play for Bell because they need a starting running back: the Jets, Raiders, Buccaneers and Washington, who don't really have the cap space to add Bell after giving Landon Collins a deal with significant money in Years 2 and 3. The Raiders spent their cash on hand on Antonio Brown, Lamarcus Joyner and Trent Brown. The Bucs might still believe in 2018 second-rounder Ronald Jones, just as Washington will likely try to turn things over to Derrius Guice.

There were other teams that might have been willing to cut their incumbent starter and replace them with Bell, and according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, one nearly did. The 49ers went after Bell in a move that would have seen them theoretically cut McKinnon before ever playing a game with the team. Bell is a better back than the former Vikings backup, and the Niners would have had the money to make the move, but Kyle Shanahan's offense simply does not require an expensive running back to succeed, and we have more than two decades of history as proof.

The Steelers have lost both Le'Veon Bell and Antonio Brown this offseason Justin Berl/Getty Images

Other teams that were rumored to be involved didn't make sense. The Ravens are too smart to pay an enormous premium for a running back. The Eagles have repeatedly saved money at the halfback position under GM Howie Roseman in recent years to invest elsewhere. I'm a little surprised that teams such as the Bills and Texans didn't make a run at Bell to try to replace McCoy or Lamar Miller, respectively, but by Tuesday afternoon, it felt like the Jets were mostly negotiating against themselves.

They always made the most sense as the likeliest suitor for Bell. They had a ton of cap space and a general manager who was desperate to spend it to keep his job. Mike Maccagnan has a history of paying running backs, although those signings generally haven't moved the needle. New York needed to upgrade with Bilal Powell hitting free agency and Isaiah Crowell finishing 46th out of 47 backs by Football Outsiders' measure of success rate.

The Jets' goal this offseason was to build a better infrastructure around Sam Darnold, and Bell was the natural final piece. They hired an offensive head coach in Adam Gase, signed slot receiver Jamison Crowder, and traded for Raiders guard Kelechi Osemele. They probably need to add a center after missing out on Matt Paradis, and tight end is still a question mark, but in the Jets' efforts to find weapons for Darnold, Bell is a considerable upgrade on the backs they have.

These moves will take a lot of pressure off Darnold to make plays downfield. When healthy, Crowder is a valuable slot receiver and a source of relatively easy yardage. Bell's utility as a receiver is well-known; while the claims that he amounts to a No. 2 wideout were overblown at the time in 2017, he's certainly one of the most effective receiving backs in football.

Gase struggled to figure out his running back situation in Miami, repeatedly stumbling between options. He started his tenure by trying to sign Anderson to an offer sheet that the Broncos matched. The Dolphins then signed Foster and built a four-back rotation before turning things over to Ajayi, who broke out in a massive way. One year later, the Dolphins grew frustrated with their culture and traded Ajayi to the Eagles to try to fix it. Ajayi was such a problem there that he won a Super Bowl.

Next, Gase turned the job over to a timeshare between Kenyan Drake and Damien Williams before eventually giving the full-time gig to Drake, who carried the ball 91 times for 444 yards over the final five games of the 2017 season. Dolphins fans were excited about the idea of a full season from Drake as the starter, only for Miami to sign Frank Gore and give him 156 carries to Drake's 120.

Now, though, the story is set in stone before the opener even begins. Gase will plug in Bell and worry about the rest of his roster. I would be worried about possible friction down the line if Bell struggles and Gase is still coach, but the Jets didn't shell out this sort of money to have their star sit on the sidelines. He's going to get a heavy workload, with occasional rest provided from third-year back Elijah McGuire.

There will naturally be speculation that the Jets did this for promotional purposes. They might have upped their offer after the embarrassment of losing Anthony Barr back to the Vikings because he "felt sick" about joining the Jets. They might have wanted to win the war in the New York papers against the Giants, although they couldn't have known that the Giants would cede competitiveness to them by trading away Odell Beckham Jr. hours before Bell announced his pact.

I don't think those factors ended up mattering all that much. The Giants ran themselves into the ground without the Jets' help. The Jets shouldn't spend money on a running back because a would-be edge rusher didn't end up taking their cash after all. New York can now go into the draft with a reasonable shot of coming away with Nick Bosa, given that the Cardinals appear to be looking at Kyler Murray with the No. 1 overall pick, while the 49ers just signed their Leo rusher by trading for Dee Ford. Adding Bosa or Josh Allen would plug the team's biggest remaining hole on defense.

In the end, Bell and the Jets are a marriage of convenience. Maccagnan needed to add weapons for his young quarterback, but there weren't exciting-enough wideouts on the market for the Jets to displace Robby Anderson. A running back will do. Bell unquestionably wanted more money than this, but in the absence of a massive deal, he'll come away with merely life-changing money. Amid a two-day frenzy in which players such as Billy Turner and Justin Coleman were coming away with stunningly large deals, Bell's contract is one of the first in this free-agent period to come in short of expectations. He will have to defy history to do the same in New York.

Browns get: WR Odell Beckham Jr.

Giants get: 2019 first- and third-round picks and S Jabrill Peppers

Browns grade: A

Giants grade: D+

I went longer on the OBJ trade -- and why the Browns won -- so read the full analysis here.

Tuesday, March 12

The deal: Four years, $44 million with $22.5 million guaranteed

Grade: B-

Once a frustrating left tackle and very nearly a Raider, Saffold finishes his nine-year stint with the Rams as one of the best guards in football. Although the 30-year-old hasn't made it to the Pro Bowl, he probably deserved to make it to at least one of the two most recent events, even if the Super Bowl would have precluded him from playing in this past year's gala. Saffold struggled to stay healthy earlier in his career, but the former second-round pick has missed only one game due to injury the past three seasons.

There's always going to be danger of a free agent leaving the protective cocoon of Sean McVay and the Rams and looking worse in the process, but Saffold was effective even before McVay arrived in L.A. In joining the Titans, Saffold will become part of what will be one of the most expensively assembled lines in the league. Taylor Lewan is on a five-year, $80 million deal. Josh Kline re-signed last year for four years and $26 million. Center Ben Jones is in the final year of a four-year, $17.5 million pact. Right tackle Jack Conklin is still on a rookie deal, but he was drafted with the eighth overall selection. The Titans still might add another guard to push Kline, who struggled in 2018, to the bench or off the roster. Marcus Mariota can't claim that the Titans haven't gifted him with offensive line help.

The deal: One year, $10 million

Grade: B

With the Texans losing Kareem Jackson to free agency and Johnathan Joseph turning 35 next month, Houston needed to address its cornerback situation. In part, that's because it doesn't trust the cornerback it invested in last offseason, since Aaron Colvin ended the season as a healthy scratch in the playoff loss to the Colts. You have to figure the Texans will try to restore Colvin to the slot corner role in 2019, but they needed to find at least one cornerback this offseason.

I like the addition of Roby, who looked to be one of the league's most promising young cornerbacks before a frustrating 2018. I would have preferred the Texans to come away with at least an option year to go with this one-year pact, but the $10 million price tag is reasonable for a 26-year-old cornerback who has missed just one game in five seasons and looked to be ascending for most of his career.

The deal: Two years, up to $13 million

Grade: B-

Have you ever watched a sitcom play the "will they or won't they?" game with a would-be couple for so long that you get sick of waiting to find out what will happen? That's where I am with Parker and the Dolphins, who have seemingly spent the past two seasons about to move on from their frustrating-yet-talented former first-round pick.

When teams change personnel departments, they make a habit of moving on from the old regime's difficult draft picks, to whom they have no attachment. Somehow, in this case, the arrival of coach Brian Flores & Co. has strangely managed to get Parker an extra life. Parker wasn't going to be worth his fifth-year option, but the Dolphins restructured the contract into a two-year deal, which gives him a chance to prove himself with the team that drafted him one last time.

The deal: Four years, $42 million with $16.7 million guaranteed at signing

Grade: B

The longtime Rams safety will stay in California for one more year before moving to Nevada, as Joyner was able to stay within a short flight of Los Angeles by signing with the Raiders. It was clear that the Rams were going to move on from their most recent franchise-tagged player this