NFL free agency

Every year following the Super Bowl, the NFL goes through two months of complete chaos. Reports start coming out about players wanting new contracts, star players get linked to new teams, fans start paying more attention to mock drafts and everyone thinks their team will be winning the big game next year.

Now that the dust has mostly settled on free agency, I’m going to analyze which teams got better, worse or stayed the same after all their signings and trades.

Starting off with a team that has obviously stayed at the bottom of the league, you have the Dallas Cowboys. After saying they would go “all-in” last offseason, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones decided on a more conservative approach to this offseason.

So far, the Cowboys have allowed Micah Parsons' contract value to increase without extending him, and they traded for the Bills former first-round pick Kaiir Elam. The phrase “former first-round pick” is a great indicator that the player in question is no longer anywhere close to being good.

This offseason bodes well for my continued ability to watch with joy as Cowboys fans go from proclaiming this year being their year to make it past the divisional round, only to watch their team crash and burn.

Another team that has stayed the same so far is the Cincinnati Bengals. While I believe they have made marginal improvements by re-signing some of their players including Mike Gesicki, what stands out is the players they haven’t re-signed.

Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Trey Hendrickson are still awaiting new contracts, and they aren’t getting any cheaper. The Bengals, much like the Cowboys, waited too long to sign these key pieces to good deals.

Now, they’re likely going to have to tie up a significant portion of the team’s salary cap with their four key players. They’ve tied up a significant amount of cap space in new deals with Chase and Higgins, but if they can’t manage to sign Hendrickson to a new deal, the team will only get worse on defense.

A team that few people are talking about remaining unchanged is the New Orleans Saints. The team restructured a few of their players' contracts, including Derek Carr and Tyrann Mathieu, signed Chase Young, Juwan Johnson and Justin Reid to new deals along with trading a seventh-round pick for Patriots defensive tackle Davon Godchaux.

After all those signings, plus the addition of Kellen Moore as the team’s new head coach, I just feel unimpressed looking at this Saints roster. It’s close to the same as last year, and if the team faces injury like they did last year, they will be in big trouble. Even if they don’t, this team just seems to be mediocre at best. What is impressive is that, for what feels like the millionth time, the Saints went from being tens of millions of dollars over the salary cap to being slightly under it heading into the draft.

A team that has, at least so far, gotten worse is the Seattle Seahawks. One positive decision that they made was replacing quarterback Geno Smith with Sam Darnold. The bad news is Darnold’s only real option to throw to — beyond Jaxon Smith-Njigba — is Cooper Kupp.

The team has no real depth at receiver and, despite having a great running back duo, doesn’t have the best offensive line. After seeing how Sam Darnold’s season ended last year, being sacked 11 times in the last two games he played, it’s hard to not be concerned about how he might perform under pressure this year.

If the team can make solid improvements to their roster through the draft, I’ll be a little less concerned, but for now the Seahawks look like they’re taking a year to rebuild.

Sticking in the NFC West, the 49ers are also only getting worse with each passing day. While I can understand wanting to get younger as a roster, you don’t start that process by jettisoning all of your top talent for nothing.

The 49ers experienced some of the worst roster turnover I have ever seen, and they still haven’t paid Brock Purdy. While it’s unknown what his contract will look like as of now, it’s also unknown who he’ll have to throw to, who will run the ball and who will be protecting him before the season starts.

While they still have George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey and Brandon Aiyuk on their roster, the team is just an injury or two away from spending the season fighting for the first overall pick.

Unless they trade aging players for opportunities in the draft, the 49ers will likely spend next year near or at the bottom of the league.

The Falcons have now made it a second offseason in a row where they have left fans baffled with their decision making. Last year, this team had one of the worst defensive lines in the league. What felt like the one bright spot was ten-year starting defensive tackle Grady Jarrett.

So, what did the Falcons do to start free agency? They released Grady Jarrett, and then signed cheap replacements to fill in the void he left on the line.

The Falcons are also still saddled with Kirk Cousins’ contract, essentially paying him $100,000,000 to be a backup to Michael Penix Jr. While this year's draft has one of the best defensive tackle classes ever, I don’t think the Falcons drafting someone to replace Grady Jarrett will suddenly fix the issues they had last year with getting to the quarterback.

The only way this team plays well is if Michael Penix is able to take the reins to the offense and beat other teams in shoot-outs week after week.

Finally, for the teams that have made significant improvements, starting with my own team, the New England Patriots. The Patriots are likely going into another rebuild year, and my hopes aren’t that high for them to win more than six games in their first season with Mike Vrabel as their new head coach.

That said, the Patriots defense has already received a significant boost after the first wave of free agency. Signings like Milton Williams, Carlton Davis and Robert Spillane are straight upgrades to the Patriots roster. They still have some work to do on the offensive side of the ball, but where it stands right now, they have made significant roster improvements compared to where they were last season.

Another team that has appeared to only make improvements to their roster is the Chicago Bears. New head coach Ben Johnson took one look at last season's roster, saw the biggest issues were on the offensive and defensive lines, and made those areas a top priority in free agency signings.

The offensive line in particular was infused with new talent in Jonah Jackson, Joe Thuney and Drew Dalman all being brought in to protect Caleb Williams. While this does put pressure on the team to win now, and it can only mean the worst if Caleb Williams underperforms despite the additions to the offensive line, the Bears have  a serious chance to take the leap to being a playoff contender.

The last team that, in my opinion, has made the most significant improvements is the Denver Broncos. While the team is still having to pay out the dreadful Russell Wilson contract, the Broncos managed to make some improvements to their roster.

They addressed needs on their defense by signing Dre Greenlaw and Talanoa Hufanga, and they brought in Evan Engram to fill a major hole on the offense at tight end.

The Broncos can only get better through the draft and additional signings, and they have a serious case to make it beyond the wild card in the coming season.