2012 NFL Free Agency: 6 Teams That Need to Think Twice Before They Spend Big

While every major sport in America has a "win now" culture, the NFL outdoes the NHL, NBA and Major League Baseball when it comes to the pressure to win immediately.

Of the past 20 Super Bowl participants, only five were making their first appearance in the game.  That leaves a long list of unsatisfied fanbases starving for a shot on the big stage.

In addition to fan unrest, general managers and head coaches also feel they need immediate results in order to keep their jobs as fewer franchises maintain stability at the top from year to year.  

Coaches like Raheem Morris and Todd Haley were lauded for fine coaching performances in 2010, only to find themselves out of a job when things went south in 2011.  

With little time afforded to franchises by ownership and fans when rebuilding, it seems the quick and easy answer is to throw money at established NFL free agents.  If fans and ownership will not let these coaches bring in young players through the draft and develop them, then why should they take that route in putting together their teams?

The truth is that in the NFL, simply having the highest payroll does not equate to wins on the field.

Based on payroll estimates for the 2011 season, four of the top 10 teams with the highest payrolls failed to even make the playoffs last year.  The Giants and Patriots, this year's Super Bowl participants, ranked 12th and 19th, respectively, in payroll according to estimates by analyst Ryan Sleeper.  

So there lies the conundrum in the NFL's free agency period.  

Some teams will benefit from making widespread changes on the roster in free agency while others could set their franchises back years if big money moves fail to work out.

While every team needs to be active in the free agency market to an extent, here are the six franchises that would be wise to tighten the purse strings when it comes to this year's free agency period.

Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jacksonville Jaguars franchise is at a crossroads in its existence.  

Original owner Wayne Weaver sold the Jaguars to Shahid Khan late in the 2011 season and Jack Del Rio was fired during his ninth season as the team's head coach, leaving the Jags searching for a new direction for the first time in nearly a decade.

Although Weaver mandated that whoever he sold the Jaguars to would keep the team in Jacksonville, whispers of the team's relocation will always circulate as attendance dwindles.  

With new ownership, new head coach Mike Mularkey, the NFL's reigning rushing leader and a defense that surprisingly ranked sixth in the NFL in total defense, there is reason for optimism in Jacksonville.

However, ownership shouldn't overreact to those bright spots by throwing around money in the free agency market.

The Jaguars are still years away from being a real contender in a deep AFC.  With the Texans poised to make a run as a dominant force in the AFC South, even a successful Jaguars season could see them in competition with the Steelers, Ravens, Jets and upstart Bengals for possible wild-card spots.

Another factor that is clouding the Jaguars' future is quarterback Blaine Gabbert.

Gabbert had an uneven rookie season at best and the jury is still out as to whether he can develop into a franchise quarterback or not.

The worst thing the Jaguars could do would be to overspend in free agency and put the team in the hands of a second-year quarterback who didn't show many signs of competency in 2011.

Miami Dolphins

The Miami Dolphins are in the midst of the worst stretch of football in the franchise's storied history.

They haven't won a playoff game since 2000 and have had five losing seasons in the past six years.  With the Heat and Marlins dominating the sports scene in South Beach, the Dolphins have become an afterthought in Miami.

The Dolphins were competitive at times in 2011 and Matt Moore showed signs that he could be a capable starting quarterback in the NFL.  However, owner Stephen Ross and general manager Jeff Ireland have been rumored to be major players for a healthy Peyton Manning with Matt Flynn also on the radar.

If the Dolphins were smart, they would bypass spending big on a quarterback and address areas with more of an eye towards long-term success.

Starting offensive linemen Vernon Carey and Marc Colombo are unrestricted free agents and while Reggie Bush enjoyed the best season of his career, he still hasn't played 16 games in a season since his rookie year in 2006.

New head coach Joe Philbin would be well-served developing a three-year plan, instituting a youth movement and sticking to it.  

Not only would a plan like that be a sensible way to drag this franchise from the doldrums of mediocrity, but it could also coincide with the decline of the Tom Brady era in New England.  Brady is on a contract that runs through the 2014 season, when he will be 37 years old.

Despite another crushing postseason defeat, Brady and the Patriots are still an elite franchise and should continue to rule the AFC East in the foreseeable future.  

While the Dolphins do appear to have some spending room this offseason, no amount of money will allow them to challenge the Patriots for the AFC East.

St. Louis Rams

The St. Louis Rams were historically awful in 2011 and no amount of money spent in free agency will change that immediately.  

The Rams scored 193 points for the entire year in one of the most putrid offensive seasons in team history.  By comparison, the "Greatest Show on Turf" Rams team of 2000 scored 217 points over their first five games.

The anemic numbers on offense may have only been outdone by equally terrible numbers at the gate.  The Rams ranked 29th in home attendance, topping just the Bills and Buccaneers (who only had seven home games) and Bengals and ranked 27th in overall attendance.  

The lack of interest in St. Louis was one of the main factors that the Rams inked a three-year deal to play one "home" game in London from 2012 to 2014.  With whispers of a possible relocation out of St. Louis, could the Rams possibly be running a trial period for a permanent move to London?

Throw in an NFL franchise valuation rank of No. 30 according to Forbes magazine, and the Rams have a full-blown financial emergency on their hands.

All the indecision and apathy around the Rams franchise did not do any favors for Steve Spagnulo during his tenure as a head coach and will make the start of Jeff Fisher's stint tenuous at best.

The Rams are staring at multiple seasons of upheaval, uncertainty and poor play and a move to bring in free agents would be ill-advised.

The Rams will likely have a string of high draft choices over the next few seasons and their best hope to restore the glory would be to stockpile picks and hit on some franchise cornerstones in the first round. 

Cleveland Browns

The Cleveland Browns are in a lot better shape than most of the other teams drafting in the top 10 this year.  With nine picks in hand, the Browns have tremendous flexibility to draft cornerstone players, draft depth or package picks in order to make moves.

The Browns should explore all of those options as primary ways of improving their moribund franchise.

The Browns have won just four playoff games since the 1970 merger and have had just one playoff appearance since the NFL reincarnated the franchise in 1999.

2011 marked the fourth straight season in which the Browns failed to win more than five games and they do not have many bright spots on their roster.  They don't figure to be competitive anytime soon, so the best thing team president Mike Holmgren and general manager Tom Heckert can do is build a foundation.

The Browns are already smartly in negotiations to retain D'Qwell Jackson and would be well-served to let Peyton Hillis walk.

After that, if they wanted to sign trench players to shore up their offensive and defensive lines, that would be fine.  

But signing multiple veterans at other positions beyond that will take time away from the young players the Browns should be drafting and developing as they look to try to establish some kind consistency and shake the stigma that 16 losing seasons over the past 19 years has brought to the franchise.

Washington Redskins

The Redskins are in a much different position than a lot of the teams in this slideshow.  

They have a loyal fanbase, high attendance, an owner more than willing to spend money and a franchise valuation ranking of No. 2 in the NFL by Forbes magazine.

So if they have the means, why wouldn't they spend to get the best team that they could?

Because it flat out doesn't work for the Redskins.

Since Daniel Snyder bought the Redskins from Jack Kent Cooke in 1999, he has thrown his money around as much as allowed by the NFL and that has amounted to a grand total of three winning seasons. 

It is time the Redskins start building through the draft and developing their younger players.  

The Redskins have good young leaders on the defense in Brian Orakpo and Ryan Kerrigan and the best route they could take to become consistently good would be to continue to build through the draft.

The team needs to get younger on offense and find some explosive threats that other teams have to worry about.  Trotting Jabar Gaffney and Santana Moss out there isn't going to scare anyone.  The 'Skins need to draft a quarterback and some skill position players and let them all develop together.

By no means should the Redskins abandon their active stance in free agency, but it shouldn't be the primary way they build their ballclub.

Detroit Lions

After 10 straight losing seasons and just two years removed from a putrid 0-16 record in 2008, the Detroit Lions went 10-6 in 2011 and qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 1999.

They should have been the feel-good story in the NFL last year, but there was just one catch: Everyone hated them.

The Lions had a reputation as one of the dirtiest team in the NFL and in a Sports Illustrated poll, Ndamukong Suh was voted the dirtiest player in the NFL by his peers by a landslide.  To make matters worse, Jim Schwartz typically acts like a jerk before, during and after games.

And that is all perfectly fine by them.

The Lions have spent the better part of four decades being knocked around the NFL and now they finally have the talent to fight back, and dirty or not, they sure are going to fight.  

So after going 10-6 behind one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL, why wouldn't the Lions look to spend big in free agency?

Quite frankly, they don't need to.

The Lions' attitude and reputation have been a huge part of their resurgence and if the Lions bring in a big number of free agents, it could change that dynamic.  

The Lions should be looking to make serious upgrades in their secondary, sign some of their own key free agents (especially Cliff Avril) and find players in the draft who play with the same nasty streak that fits the Lions style of play.

In any other season, Matthew Stafford would have gotten serious MVP consideration, so the Lions are set with a franchise quarterback.  They have game-changing talent in Calvin Johnson and other legitimate offensive weapons.  

The Lions could use more consistency at running back, but that is mostly a matter of their stable staying healthy.  

It won't take a serious spending spree to vault the Lions to elite status in the NFC, just some minor tweaks and an upgrade in the defensive backfield.