Predicting the Worst Contracts of 2020 NFL Free Agency
Next week, hundreds of NFL veterans will sign million-dollar contracts on the free-agent market. And many of those contracts will turn out to be mistakes.
With that in mind, let's forecast some of the market's most glaring soon-to-be errors.
We'll base our projections mainly on the current top of the market at each player's position while considering inflated values commensurate with the rising salary cap. And we'll base the selections on a player's age, injury history, past production and/or lack of growth potential.
There'll be good and there'll be bad this month. Now, meet the ugly.
QB Tom Brady
1 of 8
Predicted contract: Four years, $120 million with $60 million guaranteed
Somebody will do it. It might not be the New England Patriots, but somebody will bite and offer Tom Brady a contract worth around or more than $30 million per year with multiple seasons essentially guaranteed.
They'll do it even though Brady's rate-based numbers plummeted during his age-42 season, and even though he completed just 57 percent of his passes, averaged just 5.9 yards per attempt and posted a passer rating of just 80.8 in the second half of that 2019 campaign.
They'll do it because they'll hope to capture some of that Brady magic; they'll convince themselves that the guy who has been killing them all these years has enough left in the tank to make at least one more Super Bowl run in the right environment.
And they might even do it because they believe Brady's high-profile brand will be a boon to ticket and merchandise sales.
They might be right about that in the short term. The problem is Brady very likely has nothing left, because no quarterback ever really has at his age. And that probably means his numbers won't improve, and his sharp decline will continue, and he won't help his new team win a lot more games.
And ultimately, that's the only thing that really keeps fans' attention.
Eventually, the Tom Brady novelty will wear off. And at that point, his contract will become an albatross.
QB Ryan Tannehill
2 of 8
Predicted contract: Four years, $120 million with $45 million guaranteed
Ryan Tannehill might have just pulled a Joe Flacco, or something close it.
You might recall that Flacco was just another quarterback before he lit it up en route to a title in the 2012 playoffs and then landed what at the time was the most lucrative contract in NFL history.
Tannehill wasn't even a starter at the beginning of a one-year deal with the Tennessee Titans, but he finished the 2019 season as the league's highest-rated qualified passer and the Titans surprisingly reached the AFC championship with him under center.
That might not be enough for Tannehill to set a new contractual high-water mark, but at least one team will now be convinced that the 2012 No. 8 overall pick is finally living up to expectations.
They'll be ignoring the fact that Tannehill is about to turn 32 and that he was never consistently good during his seven years with the Miami Dolphins. Yes, he went on a tear during a 10-start stretch in 2019, but it's important to remember he put up a 129.9 rating during a three-game run in 2018 and three 120-plus ratings during a five-game stretch at the conclusion of the 2016 campaign.
He's always been hot and cold, and paying him for only the hot is a tremendous risk. Just ask the Baltimore Ravens about Flacco.
RB Melvin Gordon III
3 of 8
Predicted contract: Four years, $30 million with $16 million guaranteed
Melvin Gordon III is a high-profile player with two Pro Bowl nods on his resume. So even though he plays a tremendously devalued position, somebody will sign the veteran to a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid backs in the game.
Because so many teams are loaded with salary-cap space and desperate for established offensive weapons, at least one team will disregard the fact that nine backs are making more than an average of $6 million per year and none of them participated in last year's playoffs.
Because their shelf lives are so astonishingly short, and because this is the most pass-happy era in NFL history, running backs are almost never worth second contracts in this league. Just look at recent big-money deals for Todd Gurley, Le'Veon Bell and David Johnson, all of whom have failed to live up to their salaries.
Gordon will become the latest cautionary tale. He'll already be 27 years old in the fall, he's gone over 1,000 yards just once in five NFL seasons, and he's averaged fewer than 4.0 yards per attempt in four of his five campaigns. To boot, he's played in all 16 games just once in his career.
Anything beyond a one-year prove-it contract worth around $1 million would be a blunder.
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RB Derrick Henry
4 of 8
Predicted contract: Four years, $66 million with $50 million guaranteed
Could Derrick Henry be an exception to the above rule? Possibly, because he nearly took the Tennessee Titans to the Super Bowl on his back last season. He's the league's reigning rushing champion, one of its top offensive weapons, and he finished 2019 as the hottest player in football.
But that also means Henry will likely command the most lucrative contract in the league at the running back position. He told The Rich Eisen Show earlier in the offseason that Ezekiel Elliott's position-leading $15 million average annual salary is his "floor," which makes sense considering he's coming off a better season and the cap continues to skyrocket.
But Henry was never a Pro Bowler before 2019, and his aggressive playing style might not bode well for his ability to sustain that level of play in 2020 and beyond. He carried the ball a league-high 303 times last season, which could also lead to problems for the 26-year-old.
The 300-carry curse is a thing, and it's hard to imagine Henry paying off for his new team in a year or two.
WR A.J. Green
5 of 8
Predicted contract: Franchise tag ($18.5 million)
A.J. Green's last truly elite season came in 2015, when the 2011 No. 4 overall pick caught 86 passes for 1,297 yards and 10 touchdowns as a key member of the 12-4 Cincinnati Bengals.
It's been all downhill since for both the Bengals and Green, who has missed 29 games the last four years and caught a mere 55 percent of the passes thrown his way since 2017.
He'll be 32 before he plays another game, and he's played in just nine since turning 30. It's fair to wonder if his balky ankle will ever allow him to be a consistent NFL presence again, let alone a star.
And yet according to Tyler Dragon of the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Bengals plan on spending $18.5 million on the franchise tag for Green. According to Spotrac, that would result in the third-highest cap hit at that position, which is wild for a rebuilding team that doesn't like to spend money and isn't loaded with salary-cap space.
EDGE Vic Beasley Jr.
6 of 8
Predicted contract: Three years, $42 million with $25 million guaranteed
Just wait for somebody to fall into a trap and pay Vic Beasley Jr. based on his sack totals. The 27-year-old edge defenders numbers alone aren't bad. He had eight sacks in his walk year and led the league with 15.5 back in 2016. But that was his only standout campaign, and that sack number was misleading.
Beasley has never recorded more than 16 quarterback hits in a season and has just 25 total in the last three years. He doesn't bring heat consistently enough, and he's recorded just three forced fumbles in his last 49 regular-season games.
The 2015 No. 8 overall pick ranked 70th among qualified edge defenders at PFF. But he's a big-name pass-rusher, he's relatively young and he has 37.5 career sacks under his belt.
That's enough for somebody to mistakenly give him at least a second-tier free-agent pass-rusher contract, which in this day and age is still off the charts.
CB Byron Jones
7 of 8
Predicted contract: Four years, $58 million with $35 million guaranteed
Like many of the dudes on this list, Byron Jones is a good player. But not all good players have good contracts, and it sure sounds as though Jones is reaching the point at which his perceived value greatly exceeds his real-world value.
Plenty of teams have already been linked to the suddenly popular cornerback, with Spotrac projecting his market value at $14.1 million annually. Does that make sense for a player who ranked 17th among qualified corners at PFF in 2019, has made the Pro Bowl just once and has just two career interceptions in five seasons?
Probably not, but the market is likely to be out of control, and Jones is the only truly accomplished sub-30-year-old cornerback slated to hit free agency.
That likely means he'll be dramatically overpaid ahead of his age-28 season.
CB Chris Harris Jr.
8 of 8
Predicted contract: Three years, $42 million with $20 million guaranteed
Chris Harris Jr. is older than Jones. But he's also a lot more accomplished, and he has mastered the slot but is relatively versatile. That could move him into Jones' range, and it's telling that he was confident enough to turn down a three-year, $36 million contract prior to the 2019 trade deadline in October, per Nicki Jhabvala of The Athletic.
He likely didn't do that without an indication of what he could get on the open market, but anything above that would be silly.
Harris is turning 31 in June, and he spent most of his career in the slot before moving outside full-time and generally struggling for head coach Vic Fangio in 2019. He's undoubtedly a declining player who tied career lows with six passes defensed and one interception in 16 games in 2019. But he'll be paid handsomely because it's a shallow free-agent pool at a premium position, and he has four Pro Bowls on his resume.
Teams thinking long-term should stay away.
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