WSOU

NFL Free Agency's biggest moves: Part two

Date: March 28, 2020

By: Jorie Mickens

After reviewing DeAndre Hopkins to the Cardinals, Philip Rivers to the Colts and Calais Campbell to the Ravens, let’s look at some other big names that found new homes this offseason.

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Stefon Diggs playing with the Minnesota Vikings. Credit: Brad Rempel/ USA TODAY Sports

Buffalo Bills trade for Stefon Diggs

After five seasons in Minnesota, wide receiver Stefon Diggs was traded to the Buffalo Bills for a first-round, a fifth-round and a sixth-round pick in 2020, and a fourth-round pick in 2021.

The Vikings got a great haul for a receiver who has already missed ten games in his career and for someone who has never made a Pro Bowl. With that said, when Diggs is on the field, he is one of the scariest deep threats in the league. Of receivers with 50 or more receptions from last season (46 players), Diggs ranked third in yards per reception and second in yards per target.

Bills quarterback Josh Allen improved in a lot of categories during his first full year as a starter. He doubled his passing touchdowns from his rookie season and rushed for an extra touchdown as well. He cut down on his interception total even though he started five extra games and improved his quarterback rating from 67.9 to 85.3. Allen’s biggest asset though, outside of his mobility, is his ridiculous arm strength.

Although Allen still has to work on his pass accuracy, he’s a 6-foot-5-inch, 238-pound tank who can stand in the pocket and either shake off sacks or extend plays with his legs. The Bills pass blocking could use so work, but Allen now has a terrifying receiving core consisting of Diggs, John Brown, Cole Beasley, Dawson Knox and second year running back Devin Singletary, who was third among rookie running backs in receiving yards last season.

Similar to Lamar Jackson in Baltimore, Allen will also benefit from playing with one of the league’s best defenses. The Bills did lose their top-two sack leaders from last season in Jordan Phillips and Shaq Lawson, but Ed Oliver had five sacks in just seven starts as a rookie last season. Tremaine Edmonds is already one of the better linebackers in the league at 21-years old, and Tre’Davious White, Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde make up one of the best secondaries in the NFL.

Trading away a first-round pick is never a good thing, but the Bills nearly dethroned the New England Patriots from their 11th straight division title last season. With Tom Brady now in Tampa Bay, the Bills are in position to win their first AFC East title since 1995.

Teddy Bridgewater signs a three-year deal with the Carolina Panthers

After firing their head coach, losing Luke Kuechly to retirement and releasing their former number one overall draft pick, the Panthers finally found some stability on their roster. Teddy Bridgewater spent the last two seasons as Drew Brees’ backup in New Orleans, but before that, he was leading the Minnesota Vikings to an 11-5 record in his first full year as a starter.

In 2015, Bridgewater threw for 3,232 yards and 14 touchdowns while rushing for 192 yards and three touchdowns. Bridgewater looked like Minnesota’s future at quarterback, but during a team practice in August of 2016, he suffered a non-contact injury and an MRI showed that he had torn his ACL and would miss the entire 2016 season. Case Keenum took over in 2017, going 11-3 as a starter, and that marked the end of Bridgewater’s time in Minnesota.

Last season, Brees had surgery on his thumb which forced him to miss five games. Bridgewater stepped in and won all five games for the Saints, throwing 1,384 yards and nine touchdowns, and aided Saints’ receiver Michael Thomas in breaking the single-season receptions record later that year.

Carolina went 5-11 last season, but running back Christian McCaffrey had one of the best seasons by a running back of all time. McCaffrey became just the third player in NFL history to total 1,000 rushing and receiving yards in the same season, and he caught 116 receptions, breaking his own record for the most catches by a running back in a single season.

Bridgewater will also have wide receivers D.J. Moore and Curtis Samuel at his disposal. Moore, in just his sophomore season, was ninth in the league in receiving yards and Samuel hauled in 627 receiving yards and six touchdowns in his third year in the league.

The Panthers’ defense needs a lot of retooling. Brain Burns is a great young prospect who totaled 7.5 sacks in just five starts during his rookie season, but they need to fix their secondary and defensive line. We’ll have to see what they do in this year’s draft, but it looks as if this team is still a year or two away from contending for a championship.

Philadelphia Eagles trade for Darius Slay

The Philadelphia Eagles traded a third and fifth-round pick to the Detroit Lions for three-time Pro Bowl corner Darius Slay.

Slay did have a down year last season, Pro Football Focus gave him an overall grade of 56.4, 83rd among all corners, and was a member of the league’s worst passing defense. But Slay was hardly the root of the problem for the Lions. Detroit was bad on both sides of the ball, their offense constantly left their defense with poor field position, and outside of Trey Flowers, the Lions’ pass rush was nonexistent. Slay also missed two games with a hamstring injury, which is something that could have affected him all season long, even in his return. All that said, Slay still made the Pro Bowl last season and was named a First-team All-Pro corner in 2017.

The Eagles pass defense was not much better than the Lions last season, they allowed the 14th most passing yards and 12th most passing touchdowns in the league last season. Adding Slay and fellow corner Nickell Robey-Coleman should improve this secondary and at the same time, allow the Eagles to focus on finding a wide receiver, a position this team got little to no help from in 2019.

The Eagles’ leading receiver from last season was Zach Ertz with 916 yards, second was fellow tight end Dallas Goedert with 607 yards and third was rookie running back Miles Sanders with 509 yards. No wide receiver had more than 500 yards last season for the Eagles and this trade should do more than just fix their secondary.

With Bryon Jones headed to Miami and Chris Harris Jr. headed to Los Angeles, the Eagles got one of the best available corners to pair with one of the league’s best front sevens, on a team-friendly deal at that.

Jorie Mickens can be reached at jorie.mickens@student.shu.edu.

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