2024 NFL free agency: Falcons bold bid, RB revenge contracts highlight best free agency moves

Picking out the “best” moves in free agency is a surprisingly difficult task less than 72 hours into free agency. Sure, there are LOTS of moves, but they are also typically high-priced, headline-grabbing acquisitions that ultimately involve teams throwing piles of cash at a lower tier of player. 

No disrespect to those players, it’s just the nature of the beast. The top tier of free agents are almost all retained by their teams through a variety of functions — contract extensions, the franchise tag, etc. — before free agency actually begins. Calvin Ridley hasn’t signed as of this writing, but if Darnell Mooney is getting three years and $39 million, you’d have to think Ridley will get a bucket of bills on the open market. 

Imagine what Tee Higgins and Michael Pittman would get in true free agency. The latter reportedly earned a $70 million deal over three years from his team while on the tag — he would have easily topped out above $25 million per year with a ton of guarantees on the open market. 

With all of that in mind, let’s look at my five favorite moves in free agency so far. 

Kirk Cousins puts on his Dirty (Bird) khakis 

There’s a reason people say “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” And there was a LOT of smoke around Cousins joining the Falcons in free agency, largely fueled by contract and cap concerns on the Vikings end of things. Cousins restructure last offseason was a stroke of contractual genius, because it forced the Vikings hand on signing Cousins before March 13 at 4 p.m. ET or else they’d be forced to deal with a massive dead cap hit in addition to Cousins contractual cap hits. 

Falcons new hires Raheem Morris and Zac Robinson pulled no punches when describing the quarterback they wanted: a veteran distributor who could get the ball quickly and correctly to their plethora of playmakers. They wanted someone who could win from the pocket, a la Matthew Stafford, both come from the Rams. All of it certainly seemed to rule out a guy like Justin Fields and point a spotlight on a guy like Kirk Cousins.

The Falcons offered a great landing spot for a variety of reasons — easy division, solid team, good coaching staff, ownership bought in — and a willingness to spend on the contract. They handed Cousins $180 million over four years with $90 million fully guaranteed and didn’t blink at the idea of paying an elderly quarterback coming off an Achilles injury….