Free agency in football is a little bit like running the ball. You cannot win without it to some extent, but it’s also fundamentally inefficient. Still, for many fans (and some analysts), a lack of activity in free agency represents something of an offseason failure. People are more comfortable with players they know and free agents, by virtue of having played in the league for at least a few years, are generally known to fans at large, especially at the skill positions.
But as fun as free agency can be, it just isn’t a path to victory because winning in the NFL is almost entirely the result of getting surplus value. Because free agency takes place in the one economic zone of football where players are paid actual market value, it’s difficult to find surplus value there. But let’s back up for one second. What do I mean by surplus value in the first place?
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Surplus value is everything
Surplus value is one of the most important concepts in all of sports, and even more so in any sport that has any type of salary cap or salary suppression (or both, as is the case in the NFL). In the age of high-powered computers and advanced analytics, (almost) every front office, regardless of the sport, has some idea about how much a “win” costs in the free agent market (or in draft capital).
In the NFL, newly drafted players have their salaries artificially suppressed (especially quarterbacks), and so while in free agency a win may cost X dollars, players on their first contract can provide a win at X/5 dollars, or something along those lines. Since the league has a hard salary cap, every win you generate pre-free agency frees capital to extend valuable current players or make an occasional splash in free agency. Too much use of free agency will, on the other hand, restrict your ability to engage in team-friendly extensions, hurt your depth, and crowd out potential free agent signings in other areas of need.
Teams know their own players best
Free agency is also a dangerous place to play because of asymmetrical information. You’ll note that team-friendly extensions are a major part of the previous paragraph. You might think that the smart thing to do for a player approaching free agency would be to enter free agency and get the highest market contract available, but in reality:
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While the player may not get what is objectively the biggest contract by agreeing to an extension, they will often get an immediate raise (and signing bonus) on the last year of their sub-market contract, rather than having to wait a year, and
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Football is extremely dangerous and should that player suffer an injury on the final year of their first contract, it will cost them millions.
And so, team-friendly contract extensions are extremely common, and generally a win for both sides. But what about players that are not offered extensions? Why is a player hitting free agency in the first place? Well, if a team is willing to extend a good player as they approach free agency…
Players who reach free agency have flaws
This is known as selection bias. Because most teams will try to retain the talent they believe is valuable, and also understand their own talent better than anyone else, almost everyone in free agency has been deemed by their original team to have some sort of flaw. There are circumstances when this is not necessarily true as teams that get themselves into difficult cap situations occasionally have to cut truly useful players, but more often than not, free agents are either entering their decline phase or have a recent history of injuries or some other red flag.
The fact is that while pundits will always spend time ranking a team’s performance in free agency based on the individual players signed by those teams, as Ben Solak did here, the real winners in free agency are the teams that use it sparingly. Now, there is a balance here, and former Packer GM Ted Thompson probably didn’t make quite enough use of free agency during his tenure, but if you are going to err, that is the side to err on. The Packers under Brian Gutekunst engage in free agency the proper amount, or close to it, at least in my opinion.
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The one position where it is occasionally possible to find surplus value in free agency is at quarterback, because quarterbacks are responsible for so much value compared to the rest of the positions that it’s almost impossible to compensate them fairly in a salary cap system, at least if they’re any good. Seattle won a Super Bowl partially due to Sam Darnold (though mostly due to great defensive work), and it’s possible that Miami ascends quickly if Malik Willis is able to translate his small sample success in Green Bay into a larger role. But major moves at quarterback in free agency are comparatively rare compared to everything else, and for the most part, free agency should be used sparingly. The best use of free agency is to provide reliable bridge players in the trenches while you search for younger, cost-controlled talent to take over eventually.
What is better than free agency?
There are two superior ways of filling out gaps in your roster, and the most obvious one is the draft, but the draft has its problems too. For starters, it’s hard to find…uhm…starters even in the earlier rounds. Even first rounders have a fairly significant bust rate, and so you are always gambling to some extent if relying on the draft alone. The big advantage of the draft is cost control, as good players are always bargains, while bad players are at least paid like bad players, and so the draft is mostly upside at a macro level.
And of course, the draft industrial complex means that the draft gets plenty of coverage, just like free agency. And just like free agency, everyone will have an opinion about who your team should draft, whether they got good value, if they filled positions of need, etc. Everyone knows and loves the draft, and if you draft well (or at least create the perception that you drafted well) people will fawn over you for it. But there’s an even better way to fill gaps in your roster, and it is the method that is largely being ignored this offseason by certain pundits: Development.
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The best solutions are often boring
Development is NOT the draft. It is a post-draft process that seeks to turn draft picks and UDFAs into useful players, but also, importantly, seeks to elevate those players into bigger roles while they are still cost controlled, and before (or simultaneous to) an incumbent player becoming expensive. By expensive, I mean paid more than they should be given their underlying contributions on a $/win basis.
This is not as flashy, and no one produces a column entitled, “Teams that Stood Pat the Best.” In fact, it often appears to outsiders that a team relying on development is doing nothing to replace departing players. However, if you are running a proper team, this should be the default, and not some novelty that people do not understand. Here are the facts about the Packers:
Per Ourlads, on November first of last year, the Packers’ starting offensive line was, from left to right, Rasheed Walker, Aaron Banks, Elgton Jenkins, Jordan Morgan, and Zach Tom. Their projected line as of now (which is of course pre-draft) is Jordan Morgan (at tackle, where he has been much better), Aaron Banks (who has been bad, and notably, was a free agent signing prior to the start of last season), Sean Rhyan (who replaced and outperformed the more expensive Jenkins by the conclusion of last season), Anthony Belton (a second-round pick in the 2025 draft, now with a year under his belt), and Zach Tom (who has been so good that the Packers paid him a lot of money to stick around). That line is fine in theory, and to the extent it has an obvious weakness, it’s the guy they signed in free agency.
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At edge rusher last year, the starters were Micah Parsons and Rashan Gary, with Enagbare and Van Ness serving as backups. Gary was terrible, and Enagbare was at best a fine depth piece, but nothing special. Lukas Van Ness was much better than Gary or Enagbare when healthy. He will now play an elevated role, and the starting edge position should improve as a result. It is just a simple fact that if you gave every Gary snap last year to Van Ness instead, the team would have been better. The team realizes this, which is why they saw fit to move on.
Nate Hobbs was another free agent signing last year, originally intended to take over at slot corner, however injuries and the development of Javon Bullard too often pushed Hobbs outside, where he struggled. In hindsight, the Packers would have been better served to have trusted Bullard and put that money to more productive uses in the first place.
Conclusion
And I think this is where all of the pundit handwringing over the Packers “lack of work” in free agency gets me. It’s not as if I think everything the Packers do is above criticism here, far from it. And I do think the Packers lost a few quality players in Romeo Doubs and Quay Walker, which could have a real negative impact. That said, the Packers’ free agent work makes a TON of logical sense. The incumbents behind Elgton Jenkins and Rasheed Walker (Jordan Morgan and Sean Rhyan) are better than Elgton Jenkins and Rasheed Walker. Maybe you disagree because they’re young and unproven, and that’s fine, but any given free agent replacement would also come with a ton of question marks, and the team knows their own players. The incumbent behind Rashan Gary is better than Rashan Gary. Tape and statistics are all crystal clear on this.
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The incumbents behind Romeo Doubs may not be as good as Romeo Doubs, but they are a first-round pick (Matthew Golden), a third-round pick (Savion Williams) and whatever Dontayvion Wicks is now. More importantly, if Christian Watson and Tucker Kraft are healthy, you aren’t replacing the number one receiver, you are replacing the number three receiver. If Jayden Reed is also healthy, maybe even the number four receiver.
The incumbent behind Nate Hobbs passed him already.
And in their few free agent moves, the Packers saw issues on the defensive line and so reunited the successful duo of Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Gannon. The Packers had a ton of trouble on kick and punt returns last season, and so added Skyy Moore to try to improve it. The Packers lack corner depth, and so they added to the position by taking a flyer on Benjamin St-Juste. He has not been great in the past, but his numbers have been good in zone coverage and he doesn’t cost very much.
More than anything else, the Packers’ process has been very good. They’ve self-scouted well, and they’ve not succumbed to the sunk cost fallacy or status quo bias. They haven’t added as much as some other teams, but they’ve subtracted plenty of costly dead weight. That matters. It probably matters more than making additions in free agency. And then there’s the matter of a large compensatory draft pick haul that they will be set up to receive in 2027, which only adds even more weight to the team’s process this year. So yes, it’s been a solid offseason heading into the draft.
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