Available defenders living on the edge
The 2020 NFL offseason has been unusual for many reasons. Tom Brady is a Buccaneer, for one. The draft was staged in Roger Goodell’s basement, for another.
But one abnormality that’s flown under the radar is the amount of quality defensive linemen who are still free agents. Specifically, defensive linemen who excel at rushing the passer.
Jadeveon Clowney, Michael Bennett, Everson Griffen, Cameron Wake, Ezekiel Ansah and Jabaal Sheard are all pass rushers who have had varying degrees of success throughout their careers, but they’re all useful players who possess a crucial skill in the current NFL.
Yet none of them has a team. For Clowney, it’s easy to see why he’s still a free agent. His asking price of $17-18 million per year is hard for teams to fork over at this point in the offseason. Rosters are essentially set for the 2020 season and it takes some tinkering to make a contract of that size work.
For Bennett, Griffen, Wake, Ansah and Sheard, people point to their age. All of them are at least 30 years old and past their athletic primes, even if they’re still useful as part of a defensive line rotation.
Sure, those reasons are logical and very well could be the reasons why these players are still on the market. However, there’s one aspect that is overlooked right now: cap space.
NFL teams aren’t afraid to invest in defensive line talent, but defensive line talent that comes via free agency is a risk that cripples cap space.
Last offseason saw two large contracts dished out to edge defenders that were unrestricted free agents at the time of their signing. The Detroit Lions signed Trey Flowers to a five-year, $90 million contract and the Green Bay Packers agreed to a four-year, $66 million contract with Za’Darius Smith.
Flowers was solid last season for the Lions, racking up 41 pressures and seven sacks according to Pro Football Focus, but the Lions didn’t pay Flowers
to be solid. They paid him to be an elite defensive end, which he wasn’t. Smith, meanwhile, was a home run for the Packers with a whopping 105 pressures and 16 sacks last season according to Pro Football Focus.
The nature of free agency forces teams to outbid each other for the services of players, which inevitably leads to players getting paid more than their on-field output was worth. One of the two albatross contracts given to pass-rushing free agents worked out last year. If Flowers doesn’t ramp up his production for the 2020 season, he becomes another cautionary tale of free agency.
The NFL is reaching a point where teams understand these players are valuable, but are also aware that bidding against each other for players leads to poor value in terms of constructing a roster. When NFL teams hit on pass rushers early in the draft, they tend not to let them hit free agency. Hell, even the Atlanta Falcons paid Vic Beasley’s 2019 fifth year option, which was worth about $12.8 million, just to see if he could rekindle the magic of his 2016 season when he led the league in sacks. He didn’t, and that led to the Falcons having an unproductive block of cap space that could have gone towards upgrading other areas of their team.
Most pass rushers that are highly paid are usually acquired through the NFL Draft or trades. When teams reach the point where it’s time to split paths with a valuable edge rusher, they typically try to get value for them.
Khalil Mack, Frank Clark and Chandler Jones are elite rushers that have been traded for in recent years. Jacksonville is stuck in a standoff with Yannick Ngakoue as they try to find a trade partner for him right now.
When one team is willing to let one of these players hit free agency, that’s a red flag for anyone who might be interested. It’s a risk that can put a ceiling on a team’s ability to win games in the short and long term.
The older, proven edge rushers who are still on the market can still command a nice bit of cash. Just last season, Wake signed a three year, $23 million contract with the Titans. He only made it through one year of the deal before Tennessee opted to go in a different direction. Wake will count $2.7 million against the Titans’ cap to not play for them this season.
All of the mentioned players are able to provide juice to an NFL’s defensive line, but it’s the risk they come with that’s kept them unemployed to this point.