NFL Free Agency Bracket: Ranking the 64 Best Free Agents in Football

The NFL's free agent signing period started earlier this week, along with a certain college basketball tournament. In a totally original idea, I decided to combine the two—because nobody has ever listed arbitrary items in bracket format before! 

(Okay, seriously. I wasn't going to do a bracket-style post this year, especially after Dan Levy's Inception-esque "bracket of brackets" seemed to close the door on that sort of thing. But I wanted to do a free agent update, and this seemed like as good a way as any to start that conversation). 

The "regions" for our tournament are almost self-explanatory; these are probably the four best ways to classify a player getting copious amounts of cash to play for another team:

• OVER-THE-HILL: This means that they're old! Or that I couldn't fit them in any other region.
• PROJECT: Players signed to big money despite some obvious short-term risk, whether it's a bad attitude or a penchant for weed, or from getting out of bed and realizing you're Ted Ginn.
• COAT-TAILERS: These are the guys that made names for themselves in supporting roles on other clubs, and then get paid to be placed in leading roles where they can't perform. I guess we could have called this the Ashton Kutcher regional, but then I would have had to use a smaller font on the bracket. 
• REAL DEAL: The irony is that there are no obvious value plays in free agency, but these guys are the closest a team can expect to get. 

Here's the bracket.

I would explain the seeding, but honestly I'd just paint myself into a rhetorical corner. Am I on record as saying Peyton Manning is less "over the hill-y" than London Fletcher? Does that mean I think Fletcher would be a better signing than Peyton? That he'd be a better value play, short term? Or that I think his heart is less likely to explode out of his chest before Fletcher's does? That's really for me to know and for you to squabble about in the comments.

And since this is totally arbitrary, feel free to flip out with disproportionate incredulity. You might even feel better if you engaged the Caps Lock pre-rant. Go ahead, we don't delete comments around here anyway. Give it a try. Yes, there we go. Feels good, doesn't it? Now, don't even bother finishing the rest of this. Just scroll down there and hammer out something angry. Go!

Okay, now that those idiots are gone, let's explain the seeding. I tried to sort these players from best to worst within a given category. It's hard to parse out what makes a "better" free agent signing into a single metric, but the question I kept asking myself was, "If the market value was constant and the money and years in a prospective contract were relatively equal, which player would be the better signing for an average team?" 

And some of these guys, obviously, could have been placed in a regional other than their current one. On my original list, I only had about 10 Coat-Tailers and I had Aubrayo Frankin in two regionals at once. Suffice it to say, decisions were made. Disagree with those decisions if you like. That's why we're all here. 

I didn't list Peyton as the No. 1 seed in the OTH regional. I'm still not convinced that he isn't a blindside hit away from becoming the next Teri Schiavo. But he won the regional—barely, let's say—over former Texans kicker Neil Rackers, the former Texans kicker who could probably spend his entire life calling himself "the former Texans kicker" and nobody would bat an eye. He looks the part. 

Jerome Simpson edged out Randy Moss in the Project regional (wow, that region name sounds a little racist, now that I think about it). Simpson gets the nod for having marijuana shipped to his house. I appreciate this on several levels. Not only does Simpson continue the proud tradition of Bengals brushing with law enforcement, but the idea of having such a relaxant delivered to one's door in such an expeditious manner is delightfully ironic. 

Chris Kemoeatu is really the perfect coat-tailer to surface from the Coat-Tailers regional; he's a pretty good player for a really good team. I'm not necessarily bashing any of these guys, but the criterion is there. Except for Robert Meachem. In my experience, that guy is waiver wire poison.  

And of course Matt Flynn escapes the Real Deal regional. With Manning giving the Dolphins the cold shoulder, I hope they get wise and let Joe Philbin sign a quarterback whose talents he is familiar with. Two NFL starts doesn't beat a path to Canton, but I'd like to see at least one more decent quarterback in the league next season. I also have Flynn beating Manning in the "championship" final. Remind me to mail a T-shirt to his house or something. 

Plenty of deals remain to be made in the NFL's free agency period, and it's hardly a one-and-done situation for either player or team. But if you've seen this and either commented on who the hell Juqua Parker is, or just thrown your keyboard across the room in disgust, then my work here is done.