Romo to Revis and More: Answers to Every NFL Offseason Question

Welcome to rampant speculation season!

The scouting combine is a week away. Free agency is two weeks away. Prospects are pumping iron and gulping energy shakes. Teams are setting budgets and making housekeeping transactions. NFL rules prohibit anything more juicy than franchise tagging before the start of the league year on March 9.

Nothing is really happening, give or take the odd cap cut or arrest. So it's time to guess, dream and wonder about what the offseason will bring.

Why speculate about one sizzling hot-stove storyline when we can speculate about all of them? Here's a rundown on everything that's about to happen in the next two months, from trades to free-agent splashes to the draft. Read it now, then revisit it in August and tremble at its uncanny accuracy.

What will happen to Tony Romo?

There will be no trade. Potential suitors know the Cowboys have almost no leverage (they need cap space quickly), and there won't be much competition on the market, because Romo has a short list of teams he is interested in playing for.

The Cowboys will release Romo, probably spreading his gargantuan dead-money crater across two years so they can pursue an impact pass-rusher on this year's free-agent market.

Romo only wants to play for competitive teams within about a four-hour flight of his home and growing family, according to Jason La Canfora at CBSSports.com. So what happens next comes down to a series of epic internal struggles: Bob McNair versus Rick Smith versus Bill O'Brien in the Texans front office; John Elway and a crowbar versus the Broncos' budget; Andy Reid versus his fixation with Alex Smith. (It's hard to imagine the Cardinals, the fourth team on Romo's short list, choosing to get even older).

The most likely scenario: The Broncos assemble a two-year, incentive-heavy deal that offers Romo a legitimate chance to earn a championship ring while insuring the Broncos against a season-ending back injury in the third preseason game.

The second-most likely scenario: Romo not liking what he hears anywhere and retiring to the golf course-broadcast booth-diaper daddy circuit.

Who will sign Kirk Cousins, and for how much?

Washington will tag Cousins for a second consecutive year.

The tagging will trigger a countdown/staring contest. The team and Cousins will have until July 15 to work out a long-term contract.

Washington will want to make a long-term offer to free some 2017 cap space; as it stands, the tag will make it hard for it to sign in-house free agents like DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon. Cousins will want a long-term offer because nine-figure contract offers are nice. At the same time, both sides will pretend to be totally chill about going their separate ways in 2018, because the team knows there are better quarterbacks in the sea, and Cousins knows there will always be desperate, cap-rich franchises giving him the eye.

Eventually, both sides will come to the table and sign a Russell Wilson-like contract: four years, a reported value close to $100 million, guarantees in the $60 million range.

Until then, two things are likely: 1) Washington will draft a quarterback in the mid- to late rounds in April to create semi-plausible leverage that it could maybe-sorta-possibly move on from Cousins in 2018. 2) There will be many, many let's speculate about Cousins' future columns from now through Father's Day.

What about Tyrod Taylor?

Jeffrey T. Barnes/Associated Press/Associated Press

Taylor is the biggest wild card in this crazy deck of available veteran quarterbacks.

Taylor turns 28 before the season starts. He has two years' worth of tape that plays like an inkblot test. Taylor led a ground-and-pound offense that rarely offered him a second receiving option; when Sammy Watkins was hurt, Taylor didn't really have a first option. The quarterback ran well and avoided turnovers, but it's impossible to picture him in a Patriots or Cardinals-style offense. It's hard to get a feel for where the things Taylor didn't do ends and what he couldn't do begins.

There is some logic to the Taylor-to-the-Jets speculation currently making the rounds. New Jets offensive coordinator John Morton was on Greg Roman's 49ers staff, so there's a coach-scheme connection. Taylor offers the best of both worlds for an offense loaded with veterans: He's young enough to be a long-term solution, but he's not another draft-and-develop rookie for the Jets to fail to develop.

Also, by signing Taylor, the Jets would continue the proud AFC East tradition of shuffling coaches, quarterbacks and execs in an effort to defeat the Patriots instead of trying anything new. (See: Rex Ryan, Todd Bowles, Chan Gailey, Mike Tannenbaum, Jeff Ireland, Ryan Fitzpatrick, etc.)

I didn't say that Taylor-to-the-Jets was brilliant logic. Just logic.

What about Jimmy Garoppolo, Colin Kaepernick and Jay Cutler?

Last week was National Garoppolo Fanfic Week. Here's my submission.

Kaepernick will find himself on the Failed Quarterback Prospect Trail, which is like the Oregon Trail, but with fewer broken wagon wheels and more instances of getting signed in June and released in August.

Thinking about Cutler causes tension headaches.

Enough with the quarterbacks! Who will break the bank in free agency?

As I wrote last week, pass-rushers like Jason Pierre-Paul, Melvin Ingram and Calais Campbell are going to go financially ham in a few weeks.

Texans cornerback A.J. Bouye is the most likely player to go from semi-obscurity to the top of some team's payroll. Bouye is likely to command a salary around $70 million after his breakout 2016 season.

In a way, however, most free agents will "break the bank." The ever-expanding cap has caused gradual salary increases for several years. Get used to the fact that the highest-paid player at each position probably isn't the best player, just the most recent good player to hit the open market.

Which teams will be most active in free agency?

The Browns and 49ers have shockingly huge amounts of cap space: $107 million and $79 million respectively, according to Over the Cap. Neither team has much in-house re-signing to tend to, so they are flush with real spending money.

Both the Browns and 49ers appear committed to long-term rebuilding, however, and neither team can seriously pitch a quick return to the playoffs to a prospective free agent. That may send some of the most coveted free agents to organizations that appear healthier and closer to contention that still have plenty of cash to wave around, like the Buccaneers ($62 million), Titans (also $62 million) or Raiders ($40 million).

Just to drop a little Moneyball on you: Cap space is relative. Your home team may appear to be sitting pretty with $20 million to spend, but when many other teams have $60 million or more to spend, that cushion will get eaten up quickly be re-signing in-house players who know there is potential money to be made elsewhere. In the universe of the ever-expanding salary cap, the wisest move may be to lock up next year's free agent.

You mean Antonio Brown?

Yes. The Steelers are in negotiations with Brown and have a long history of prioritizing their in-house players a year before they reach the open market. Look for Pittsburgh to lock Brown into a deal in the five-year, $80 million range that will look like a whopper when it is announced and a bargain in two years.

Will Adrian Peterson be playing for the Giants in 2017?

No. The Giants have cap issues stemming from last year's Janoris Jenkins-Damon Harrison-Olivier Vernon spree and an organizational philosophy opposed to overpaying for old guys.

So what will become of Peterson?

Peterson gets a $6 million bonus if he is still on the Vikings roster at the start of the league year and will cost the team $18 million in 2017. In the past, the Vikings have solved all of their Peterson financial dilemmas simply by paying him, but $18 million is a heck of a pill to swallow for a team with lots of other problems to solve.

Peterson probably has a few Emmitt Smith-in-Arizona seasons left in him if some team wants to force-feed him carries at about 3.8 yards per pop. With a tremendous crop of rookie running backs in the draft class, it's easier to get excited about Peterson's Hall of Fame induction in 2021 than about the thought of seeing him in, say, a Buccaneers uniform.

How will the Darrelle Revis situation play out?

Revis will plead guilty to offenses much less egregious than the kitchen sink/side-of-fries charges he now faces. With all of the shenanigans already playing out involving the cellphone recording and a pair of not-very-sympathetic victims, the Pittsburgh district attorney's office will soon be eager to get this case off the docket.

The Jets will then release Revis, something they were likely to consider anyway, and use the arrest as leverage to void a portion of his 2017 salary and cap hit, because the Jets A) are better at wasting money than a preschooler at Disney World; and B) cannot get rid of any major player without turning it into a prolonged soap opera.

Revis will end up signing as a "safety" for some team with cap space coming out its ears. "Safety" is in quotes because the only qualification Revis has as an NFL safety is that he is now too slow to be an NFL cornerback.

Let's fast-forward to the draft. Who will be selected first overall?

Myles Garrett, pass rusher, Texas A&M.

But what if the Browns …?

MYLES GARRETT.

But what if some team needs a quarterb …?

M-Y-L-E-S G-A-R-R-E-T-T.

Eric Christian Smith/Associated Press/Associated Press

Will there be big, crazy first-round pick trades this year, like the ones we saw last season?

No. This draft is so deep at so many positions that lots of teams will wait to see what falls to them, and this year's quarterbacks aren't worth staking the future of the franchise on.

There will be trades, of course, but not "next three drafts for the No. 1 pick" trades like the Jared Goff or Carson Wentz deals.

Where will the quarterbacks be drafted?

Mitch Trubisky and Deshaun Watson will be selected within the first 15 picks, possibly by the 49ers and Bears with the second and third selections. Patrick Mahomes II and DeShone Kizer will either get snapped up late in the first round, Paxton Lynch-style, or create some excitement at the start of the second round.

Are the quarterbacks in this draft class really worth early draft picks?

Grant Halverson/Getty Images

Trubisky, Watson and Co. are not as bad as the cool draftniks on Twitter suggest, nor as good on an all-other-things-being-equal basis as at least the top dozen prospects at other positions. A B-plus quarterback is worth more than a player who earns an A at most other positions. That's just a fact of life.

Trubisky or Watson could start immediately without going into a full-Goff nosedive, particularly for a team like the Bears, which has some infrastructure in place. A talented-but-streaky player like Mahomes or Kizer, selected late in the first round by a team that can wait a year (the Cardinals), could turn out to be a star.

So we really won't be subjected to one of those offseasons where the two best quarterbacks magically become the two best players in the class, thanks to the Draft Hype Industrial Complex?

Nope. There are too many other things to talk about: the Romo-Cousins gang, the running backs, buzzy players like Jabrill Peppers. We don't really need Watson to manufacture headlines.

There is still some evaluation to be done, of course. But it's hard to imagine what these guys are going to do at the combine or pro day to start a groundswell of first-pick-overall hype.

Where will the Big Three Running Backs be drafted?

Dalvin Cook will go to the Panthers with the eighth pick overall. Leonard Fournette won't last past the Colts at 14. Christian McCaffrey to the Packers at 29 makes so much sense that something crazy will prevent it.

Where will Joe Mixon be drafted?

Second round. The team that selects Mixon will use the quiet Saturday news window and the presence of a high-profile first-round pick as a smokescreen to cover the controversy surrounding the Mixon selection, then sell the fanbase on a combination of "second chances" and "shrewd bargain hunting."

That's not cynicism. It's just knowing how NFL teams operate.

How will the Patriots somehow win this offseason, despite picking 32nd overall and having tons of in-house free agents to re-sign.

Assuming they don't leverage Garoppolo to move up in the first round, the Patriots still have $61 million in cap space on hand, enough to keep young core free agents like Logan Ryan in the fold if they choose to while letting veteran role players (Chris Long, Jabaal Sheard, LeGarrette Blount) walk. 

The Patriots also excel at convincing veteran role players to stick around in search of Super Bowl rings at role-player prices: see Blount in 2015-16. An older player like Long or Alan Branch could stick around on a hometown discount.

The only thing that's certain is that the Patriots will make at least one unexpected move that will generate harsh criticism but won't ultimately hurt the team at all. Oh, and they will select someone with either a Navy or lacrosse background late in the draft.

How will the Browns screw up this draft?

They will get impatient at the end of the season, fire Hue Jackson, restructure the front office and change philosophies again. The development of this year's draft class will get stunted as the new regime changes systems and promotes "their guys." That's how the Browns screw up their drafts in alternating years. In even-numbered years, they just draft poorly. 

Salary-cap numbers provided by Over the Cap.