The fast and furious initial signing period of free agency is a thing of the past and the deals are now trickling in for the second and third tier of players. There are still a ton of players out there who have yet to sign, but the biggest deals are in place and ... boy are they big.
$1.321 billion was spent in the first 72 hours of NFL free agency
There’s an incomprehensibly large amount of money going to players in free agency.
Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
In the first three days of free agency, 85 contracts were filed by the NFL Players Association, totaling $1.321 billion, according to the NFLPA Twitter account. That includes guaranteed money in the amount of $589.797 million, another staggering number.
There's still a good number between half of the total and the guaranteed money, but on this scale it looks kind of close, doesn't it? Suffice to say that NFL players are getting paid big dollars, and teams aren't being stingy about guaranteed money. Of course, that's all counting some truly massive deals, like the $114 million contract signed by Ndamukong Suh, or the $79 million contract signed by Darrelle Revis. Around $100 million of the total guaranteed money comes from those two contracts alone.
The breakdown includes 53 unrestricted free agents signing with new teams at a total value of $1,032,180,000 and 32 unrestricted free agents re-signing with current teams for a total value of $288,930,000.
It's not just the top players getting paid, though. Guys like Antonio Cromartie are getting $8 million per season, Kareem Jackson got $20 million guaranteed from the Houston Texans, and Torrey Smith is getting $40 million over five seasons with the San Francisco 49ers. There's a whole lot of money out there, and plenty more of it will be spent before the NFL Draft comes around.
See More:
