Free agency will continue throughout the offseason, but the first and second waves of signings are in the books. There are plenty of players still looking for work and plenty of roster spots open around the league, but teams are now focused on the 2015 NFL Draft. It's a good time to look back on free agency and see what's been spent thus far.
NFL teams have spent $1.8 billion thus far in free agency
NFL contracts are getting massive, as teams have committed almost $2 billion to players this free agency period.
Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
Through Tuesday morning, 153 players have officially signed new deals for a total contract value of $1,802,821,620. That’s $1.802 billion. Guaranteed money for those contracts comes in at $788,491,999 in total. That’s a massive number, but the NFLPA broke it down further.
Ninety-seven of the players who signed did so with new teams, and those deals were worth $1.413 billion, while 56 players re-signed with current teams for a total value of $389 million. The players signing with new teams got $644 million guaranteed, while players re-signing with current teams got $144 million guaranteed.
Also of particular note from the NFLPA: four teams in particular needed to hit the salary cap floor -- teams must average an 89 percent cash spend of the salary cap from 2013-2016 -- including the Oakland Raiders, New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars and New England Patriots. Those four teams were well below 89 percent coming into this offseason.
But they’re handing out a ton of guaranteed money to get that average up. Those four teams have spent 30 percent of all guaranteed money this offseason, 27 percent of the total contract amount and 24 percent of the first-year cash, according to the NFLPA.
It wasn't all about spending the most money as possible -- these teams obviously made moves they thought were smart for the franchise. For instance, the Patriots declined an option on cornerback Darrelle Revis that would have paid him a great deal of money. But New England did spend big, re-signing guys like Devin McCourty and Patrick Chung, while getting guys like Jabaal Sheard and Scott Chandler on the open market, not to mention franchise tagging kicker Stephen Gostkowski.
Oakland was in on many of the big-name free agents, but most of those guys ended up signing with other teams. Oakland did finally make a splash with the signing of center Rodney Hudson, and also gave a big deal to safety Nate Allen. The Jaguars brought in some big-name players in tight end Julius Thomas, defensive tackle Jared Odrick and offensive tackle Jermey Parnell, while the Jets signed the aforementioned Revis, Antonio Cromartie and Buster Skrine.
It looks like all four franchises got better this offseason, but they spent a whole lot of money. Fortunately, they needed to, and let’s not forget that the players deserve the nearly $2 billion going their way.
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