I know that most, if not all of us want JD to be very aggressive in FA this year. I've spent a good bit of time looking at projected market values for players at Spotrac, and it's very sobering. JD may not be able to be as "aggressive" as many of us want, at least in terms of signing big name FAs at positions of need, unless he can get extremely creative with configuring contracts. Rather, his aggression may have to take the form of signing as many FAs as he can at positions of need, or signing one or two big name players, and then as many 2nd tier FAs as the remaining cap space will allow. Below is a list of players (by position) whom I have seen bandied about most often here and on Jets Twitter as players JD should sign, and what their projected market value is. WR Mike Williams $16.7 million DJ Chark $11.9 million Cedric Wilson $6.4 million Rashard Higgins probably around $5-6 million as his stats are comparable with Wilson's, but he's a year older For reference, Jamison Crowder $12.3 million TE Dalton Schultz $12.5 million Tyler Conklin probably in the $11-$12 million per year range David Njoku $6.9 million OJ Howard $8.1 million Robert Tonyan $10.8 Mo Allie-Cox probably $8-$10 million OG James Daniels probably similar to Austin Corbett's $8.7 million Laken Tomlinson $5.5 million LDT $8.5 million Connor Williams $13.2 million OLB De'Vondre Campbell could be in the neighborhood of $8-$9+ million For reference KJ Wright $7.1 million CB JC Jackson $20.9 million Casey Hayward $3 million? S Marcus Williams $13.5 million Jesse Bates III $14.4 million Below are some alternate names that we might want to consider. Damiere Byrd WR, around $2.5 million? Demarcus Robinson $2.9 million Trai Turner OG, $3-$4 million Kyzir White OLB, around $7 million? PJ Williams CB, $2.5 - $3 million Levi Wallace CB, $5.7 million Eli Apple CB, $2-$3 million? Mackenzie Alexander CB, $2 million We will probably need $13-$15 million to sign our draft class, and especially after this past season, I imagine that JD will want to keep at least $10 million in reserve in case of a wave of injuries again. Currently, our cap space is $48,448,365 according to Over the Cap.com. That means that half of the available money is already tied up. With cuts (Van Rotten, Griffin, Rankins, Hardee, Cashman and Lewis), that figure could rise to $62,206,836. That would still leave us with roughly 2/3 of the available cap space to spend (around $40 million). If Perine, Mims, and some other bottom of the roster players were cut we could gain a little more cap space.
Yep! Money goes fast in Free Agency. The good news about having a weak roster is that some of those 2nd Tier Free Agents will still be upgrades. So Douglas can still add 2 big names, maybe a few other lower tier Free Agents or trades, and then 4 picks in the Top 38, and the Jets instantly have 8 new starters at least, who are likely upgrades over their spots on 2021's roster. Plus the returns of Lawson and Becton, so that is 10 impact players right there.
Would love them to target Connor Williams, LTD is a possibility, but his medical career may hamper that. WRs...Robinson & Adams....
Connor Williams $13.2 million? I figure these are Spotrac estimations or something but he was dreadful in their playoff game. I think one of those two safeties would be worth the price of admission. Bates III dominated that game versus Tennessee. The Jets should add a top notch safety, a mid level guard and a legitimate NFL tightend (not Schultz at what he’ll command). Also some depth at linebacker. Cut Rankins and try to add a two down hog at defensive tackle.
I'd love to add one of those two safeties, but if we do that, we won't be able to sign many other FAs. Instead, I have us signing the Vikes' Xavier Woods at around $4.3 million (guestimation). He's only 26, started all 17 games, playing, 1,208 snaps, had 108 tackles, 2 FFs, and 3 Interceptions. I wanted to sign James Daniels, but Chicago is in great cap shape, and his market value was $9 million. Laken Tomlinson was my 2nd choice at $5.5 million, but I don't think we can even afford him. I think we're going to have to draft the starting RG. The only hope I have at this point is that the cap will go up more than is thought. I have us signing De'Vondre Campbell away from the Packers, and our starting LBs will be Campbell, Mosely, and Dean. I may have way understimated what Campbell will get in FA however.
He would definitely be a nice add, but not at $17+ million per season. After re-signing some players, and the money needed to sign our draft picks, we're not going to have much over $20 million to spend in FA.
Every year fans are calling for mass signings of high profile players, but hopefully when they see it laid out like this it will be clearer how realistic that is. I appreciate the list, although Spotrac’s projections are not always accurate. Certain guys will have a lesser market, and some probably a little higher. But yes, this is why in all of my Offseason Mocks I have the Jets making only 1-2 big moves prior to the draft…
Why are we cutting Hardee? He is the top special teams player. Out of your list I'd take Njoku and Howard Higgins and Demarcus Robinson who I think is overlooked at KC due to the rest of the cast. Also I thought Crowder was 5m after restructuring?
It looks like there is room for 1-2 splashes. The way they structure the contracts it is possible to lower initial salary, but have a larger signing bonus which you get right away, but gets split out over the years of the contract. It's basically a loophole. For instance Brady restructured his contract last year, so that he is making 1$ in base, but his signing bonus is essentially equal to what his salary is supposed to be, so he still got all his money for the year (upfront actually), but the CAP hit was only a fraction of that. NFL really needs to fix this, because what Brady and others did is pure machination, but in absence of that, JD can do things like that as well and also move some salary towards next year when Mosley's 18 mil CAP hit will be off etc. To make long story short, it's not as dire as straight math suggests because of the maneuvers like above that JD can make. With that said, I am thinking realistically we can probably get a Shultz like TE OR a WR with 12+ mil/year, plus a really good safety, around 10 mil, for the splashes. Other players would likely be low/mid tier vets. Basically it will probably be somewhat similar to last year, when we got 2 splashes (Lawson, Davis). Maybe this time there will be a few more mid tier vets, but generally I agree, we will not address every weakness with high profile free agent, and there is a decent chance we will need a WR high in the draft.
I’m sure he had a good season and redeemed himself but Xavier Woods is also the guy who got jettisoned from the terrible Cowboys defense last year after saying this.
Good write up NC. It's a lot easier having fun with the FA list in the Jets position versus say, the Packers, who pay Rogers $47m per and entering FA $45m OVER the cap and Devonta Adams wants to become the highest paid WR in the league. Yikes! The LeFleur bros might wanna pick up the phone and start wheeling and dealing.
I think JD will do something similar to last FA. 1-2 "big splashes" (10M+) and then use the rest of the money on 2nd and 3rd tier FA's. I think S, TE, or CB will be where we see the big splashes, if they happen at all.
Yes, thanks I know that, but since I'm not a cap guru, I didn't want to throw some crazy suggestion out and wanted to try to be realistic in what we could fit under the cap. It's easy to throw out a bunch of names and say, "Oh JD can do some wizardry and make it work." That may be true, but it may not be for every situation. There might be other circumstances of which we're not aware that would preclude that from happening. We've seen a lot of comments here that JD had better be very aggressive in FA. I believe he will be as aggressive as cap space will allow, and will balance adding the best players he can at positions of need and filling as many holes as possible. That said, I don't think it will be the FA bonanza that perhaps many posters here think it should be and are expecting. I wanted to give them an understanding that the reality may be different from what they want and/or expect.
Yeah, I figured Spotrac's projections were not always accurate, but I think they're the most accurate out there, and one of the few places I've seen that even makes projections. I wish OvertheCap.com would make projections, but he/they probably has/have his/their hands full as it is.
In my offseason plan, I didn't cut Hardee for the very reason you cite. I was just showing that additional cap space is sparse. Hardee makes over $2 million per season. The Jets don't have that many players with big contracts ( not that $2 million is big), and with the exception of Hardee and Rankins, the rest of our team are players we wouldn't want to cut or couldn't cut due to the huge amounts of dead money we'd take on the cap and would get no additional cap space. Crowder was $5 million after restructuring, but he was due to make a good bit more than that with us last year, so I assume that Spotrac believes a new contract would go back up to where his previous contract level was, not stay low.
Still I think at least 2 major signings should and will happen. I hope people do understand we can't get a major player at every position in free agency, but it is not unrealistic to expect say a top end TE to help Zach and a veteran top end Safety. Heck we paid Maye top 5 salary salary this year, it's completely realistic to replace that with younger option for about the same price and add someone like Shultz as a free agent, plus mid range solid CB and OL, and maybe even a good WR on top of that.
2 things that should be considered at this point in the season. 1. Most of the potential free agent targets everyone likes never make it to free agency 2. The cap is easily manipulated when teams want to spend money. Jd has more than enough ammo to get deals done if the right players hit free agency.
Crowder signed for 9.5 million a year. The reason he was due 12 million this year was his contract was back loaded. That money wasn't guaranteed so JD sliced it in half.
