NFC South Offseason Report Card: Key additions, Subtractions, Final Grades

The 2024 NFL draft’s done. Lots of clean-up work to do. So let’s not waste any more time and get to that …

On Odell Beckham Jr. and the Miami Dolphins, it’d be smart to follow the money. Last year, the 10-year veteran signed a deal in Baltimore at a base value of $15 million with upside to $18 million. This year, his base pay with Miami will be 20% of what he got with the Ravens—just $3 million—with upside to $8.5 million.

Now, to be sure, the fact that Lamar Jackson was in the midst of a drawn-out contract negotiation and wanted Beckham aboard gave the receiver leverage to get a bit of an overpay.

So maybe that’s part of why Beckham’s getting so much less. But that's not the only reason.

One executive from a team that’s been in the receiver market and explored signing Beckham told me last week it’s clear—at least to him—that the former All-Pro, after a decade in the league and with his 32nd birthday coming in November, has lost his burst. An executive from another team who also was in the market for a receiver saw it as being a little more nuanced than that.

“I don’t know if I agree that he’s lost it so much as that he’s just older, and that’s what the market says on older players,” says the AFC exec. “He’s not always healthy, which is part of that. By the end of last year, he looked good, his legs were back. Now, does he need to play himself back into shape? The offseason stuff being in the contract would be important for me. But you’re late on that, and can’t put workout bonuses in now.

“He signed so late in Baltimore, that he had to play himself back into shape. And when he did, his burst came back, and he could still do a lot of the normal OBJ stuff.”

But even then, the numbers weren’t there. He finished with 35 catches for 565 yards and three touchdowns, and had four catches for 34 yards in two playoff games with a league MVP at quarterback. Rookie Zay Flowers was the top guy in the offense after Mark Andrews went down, and Beckham didn’t do a ton to distinguish himself from Nelson Agholor and Rashod Bateman, both of whom the Ravens have back for 2024 (with Bateman on a new deal).

Now, that’s not to say he can’t help Miami. He’s different than Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, and his ability to be a physical run-after-catch receiver is still there. Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel was in San Francisco when the 49ers flirted with acquiring Beckham, so he’s clearly had plenty of time to think about how to use him. So he went to a good place.

I’d just say it’d be smart, at this point, to temper expectations on him.

The New York Jets followed their board. And their needs, too. Let’s start here—Olu Fashanu was a very clear pick for New York at 10, and then 11 after they flipped spots with the Vikings so Minnesota wouldn’t miss out on Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy. And the story on that one goes back past the big left tackle’s final season at Penn State.

Coming into the season, the Jets viewed Fashanu as at least the equal of, and probably a better prospect than, Cardinals rookie Paris Johnson Jr., drafted sixth last year out of Ohio State. As summer turned to fall, Fashanu’s standing in the eyes of scouts did slip a little, and in particular because of how he played against Johnson’s old Buckeyes teammates in October. But Jets GM Joe Douglas and his staff had a different view of it.

Within that game, with Ohio State carrying two future NFL edge rushers and potential 2025 first-rounders in J.T. Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer, yes, Fashanu got beat. But he also showed resilience in adjusting. In particular, there was a play early in the game where Tuimoloau beat Fashanu with an inside power move, where the pass rusher knocked the tackle back on his heels. Later in the game, with Penn State backed up to the goal line, Tuimoloau tried the same move, and Fashanu stoned him.

So even in his worst game, he was better than most. And then there were some of the comps, with a key one being how he played against Michigan’s Ravens-style defense, one that throws a lot at an offensive lineman. Compared to how Alabama’s JC Latham and Washington’s Troy Fautanu played against the same defense in the playoffs, Fashanu’s performance stood out and it happened, again, in a game that didn’t go the Nittany Lions’ way.

Putting all of that together, the Jets saw a guy who could be a long-term answer at one of the most important positions on the field. So the plan for now is to work with him at that position behind Tyron Smith rather than move him somewhere else.

All of that made the decision pretty simple for the Jets. The one who’d have complicated it for New York was Washington WR Rome Odunze. When the Bears took Odunze, the pick became academic (Fautanu would’ve been one fallback plan in the unlikely event neither Fashanu or Odunze made it to 10; Georgia’s Brock Bowers would’ve been another). And once Fashanu was aboard, their attention turned to receiver.

Similarly, that call came down to a few guys. The Jets actually liked Texas’s Adonai Mitchell, but got focused on the best run-after-catch guys they could find in range of their second pick at 72. Part of the reasoning was the history of the best of those receivers—Deebo Samuel in 2019, Brandon Aiyuk in '20, Garrett Wilson in '22, and Flowers last year (Kadarius Toney in '21 was the exception, for other reasons)—in each class translating easily to the NFL game.

And that’s where Western Kentucky’s Malachi Corley and Michigan’s Roman Wilson came into focus, with Corley getting the edge because, where both were wired the right way and competed, he was 30 pounds heavier and, accordingly, played with more violence. At any rate, you’ll get to weigh that one out because the Jets could’ve gotten Wilson at 72, and instead gave up the 157th pick (CB Chau Smith-Wade) to land Corley.

For now, though, the Jets are pretty happy with how all of this played out. The reality? It was going to be a lot harder to get a tackle (if it’d been Odunze at 11, the Jets probably would’ve gone with Yale’s Kiran Amegadjie at 72), along with just how much they thought of both of the guys they picked.

For all of the criticism Buffalo Bills GM Brandon Beane took for trading with the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round, his reasoning was logical. And, yes, I understand it—and how the idea of arming the rival Chiefs with a guy who runs like Tyreek Hill (though Texas burner Xavier Worthy isn’t really built like the ex-Kansas City star at all) might give people in Buffalo the shakes.

The optics may not be great. But the reality Beane was working with had three elements to it. One, the Bills actually had a comfort level with all three of the receivers that came off the board between 28 and 33. Two, they had a 68-slot gap in picks early in the draft, after using their third-rounder to get Rasul Douglas from the Packers in October after Tre’Davious White’s injury. Three, in the aftermath of March’s roster reset, they had a lot of holes to fill.

On the first reality, the situation was almost the reverse of last year for the Bills, when Utah tight end Dalton Kincaid stood alone on the Bills’ board, prompting a trade up. That Buffalo had Worthy, South Carolina’s Xavier Legette and Florida State’s Keon Coleman right there with each other gave Beane the flexibility to deal to address the second reality, in order to service the third reality. In deals with the Chiefs and Panthers, the Bills moved the 133rd pick to 95, slipping into that gap between 60 and 128, while moving two other picks up 27 (248 to 221) and 59 (200 to 141) slots to still land Coleman.

Beane, like the rest of the league, knew the Chiefs could take Worthy, and that the Panthers and his old pro director/new Carolina GM Dan Morgan were looking to arm Bryce Young with another weapon. So that he was left with one of the three didn’t surprise him, and that he was down to one of the three is why he resisted moving anymore, as offers for the pick came pouring in the day before the first round.

Buffalo ended up with a receiver whose biggest question was his timed speed, but who had the GPS tracking data of someone running in the 4.5s, and who was shifty enough, at 6’3”, to return punts as a collegian. Plus, combining that agility and ability to drop his weight as a bigger guy with a 38-inch vertical, the Bills thought, because he’s just 20 years old, he’d have the ceiling to get more explosive as a player (Legette, by comparison, is already 23).

One other interesting piece on Coleman was that he had the fastest gauntlet time, hitting 20.36 MPH, of any receiver at the combine, which translates to play speed.

All of which, again, isn’t to say that the Bills didn’t like Worthy or Legette. They did. But with those three in a cluster, getting one of them, while landing a third pick in the top 100 so they could come away with two players (Utah S Cole Bishop/Duke DT DeWayne Carter) on Day 2 rather than just one while improving their Day 3 standing simply made the most sense at the time.

Now, we’ll get to see if it looks that way once these guys get on the field.

There are two ways to look at Travis Kelce’s new contract in Kansas City. One would be that it is, indeed, a lot to pay for a tight end entering his 12th NFL season and turning 35 in October. The other would be that Kelce is one of the three bedrocks of the Chiefs dynasty, there’s value throughout your organization in rewarding that, and what a great tight end makes falls well short of what receivers, left tackles, defensive ends and corners make anyway.

Here's what you need to know on the deal …

• It’s a two-year, $34.25 million deal. It’s not an extension. Kelce had two years and $30.25 million left on his existing deal, without any guarantees. His pay for 2024, as part of the reworked contract, ticked up from $13 million to $17 million, and the Chiefs guaranteed all that money for him at signing.

• The second year remains at $17.25 million, and it’s not guaranteed yet. However, the Chiefs broke that money up, and put $11.5 million in a roster bonus that’ll be due on the third day of the 2025 league year. Which means, by mid-March, most of Kelce’s money for '25 will be locked in, creating an early decision point for the team to keep him aboard (not that it was looming as a big question).

• There are no void years on the back end to spread out the cap hit. The Chiefs, as a loose rule, try not to use that mechanism. They do restructure deals to create space (see: Mahomes, Patrick), but they’re usually pushing money into existing years on the contracts.

And, again, while $17.125 million per year is the most a tight end has ever gotten, it’s not crazy in the context of what receivers pull down. That’s what Jerry Jeudy will make with the Cleveland Browns after four mostly disappointing years with Denver. It’s less than what Christian Kirk is making in Jacksonville or Diontae Johnson made before he was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers. So even if Kelce slips a little, and he did before rallying in the playoffs last year, chances are slim that this will look like a bad deal for the Chiefs.

So everyone wins on that one.

When I went back over the deal that A.J. Brown got from the Philadelphia Eagles, one thing that stood out to me was the amount of money the team has tied up in void years. Brown’s cap charges for the six years on his contract are as follows (2024 to '29)—$5.15 million, $10.91 million, $16.78 million, $20.71 million, $27.62 million, and $29.31 million. Add it together, and you get to $110.48 million, which is $53.52 million short of the $164 million that Brown is due between now and the end of '28.

The rest of those cap dollars went to void years, all $53.52 million. And void years have become an increasingly commonly used mechanism to simply spread cap hits out over a longer period of time, allowing for less pain now (and more of it later) as a team rewards its best players.

Looking at that outsized figure made me wonder how much of this the Eagles have done. I knew they’d done at least some of it. Turns out, every big Philly deal has void years: Jalen Hurts ($97.55 million), DeVonta Smith ($35.78 million), Jordan Mailata ($35.6 million), Landon Dickerson ($35.09 million), Darius Slay ($24.94 million), Dallas Goedert ($23.83 million), Lane Johnson ($22.48 million), James Bradberry ($21.39 million), Josh Sweat ($16.39 million), Chauncey Gardner-Johnson ($13.76 million), Brandon Graham ($10.27 million), Jake Elliott ($8.61 million) and, of course, Brown.

By my math, those 13 contracts have more than $399 million in cap dollars moved into years that void at the end of those deals—and there’s more of that on shorter-term deals such as those the Eagles gave to Devin White and Zack Baun.

That’s a staggering figure, and it explains why Philly seems to have so much flexibility each year.

So, in practical terms, what does it mean?

First and foremost, and similar to New Orleans, it shows a very real commitment from ownership to winning, because all of that money being accounted for three and four and five years from now is matched with cash going out the door during the actual life of the deal. Indeed, last year, against a $224.8 million cap, the Eagles spent $257.2 million in cash, third league-wide behind only the Houston Texans and Baltimore Ravens. This year, Philly is one of two teams set to spend more than $300 million in cash (Cleveland is the other one).

All told, Philly could approach $600 million in player spending over a two-year span through which the cap is at $480.6 million. Again, it’s a tribute to Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, because a lot of owners would not be willing to do that.

Second, that money doesn’t disappear against the cap. And this is where things get interesting. Because the figures have to be accounted for, the Eagles will walk a tightrope financially in offloading players at the right time (remember, the above numbers assume you see every deal through, and savings can be had if you cut ties early), spending on the right guys and drafting well to supplement years when more dead money is taken on.

In other words, GM Howie Roseman and the front office are gambling to win now, and that they’ll get a lot of things right going forward. Because a reckoning would come for them if they don’t.

Marvin Harrison Jr. was right, Caleb Williams was right, and more playing moving forward will make their decisions on the lead-up to the draft accordingly. The end result really does make this one academic. Williams went No. 1, so he couldn’t have gone any higher than he did. And you could argue the same for Harrison, since he was the first nonquarterback drafted.

Both made waves during the week of the NFL Scouting Combine for the approach they took. Williams declined to take a physical in Indianapolis on the premise that it made no sense for him to give his full medical information to 31 teams that wouldn’t have a chance to draft him. Harrison declined to work out or test there or at his pro day, with the idea being that rather than wasting time and money on training for Olympic testing, he’d be best simply preparing for rookie year.

In the end, it did no damage to either guy.

The Chicago Bears got Williams’s medicals on the 30 visit, and 31 teams that are now his rivals don’t have information that could be damaging to him or Chicago. The Arizona Cardinals, meanwhile, are ecstatic to get a player who will be ready to hit the ground running at rookie minicamp and OTAs after training with the Ohio State strength staff as he would if he were suiting up to play football for the Buckeyes in the fall.

Williams, for his part, only visited the Bears, while Harrison only visited Chicago and Arizona.

Now, here’s the other thing to remember—few players have the leverage to do what these guys did. In most cases, players need to give teams as much information as they possibly can to get those teams comfortable with the idea of drafting them. That’s a non-issue for very few.

But going forward, if you’re in the super elite class, what will you do? Probably follow the lead of Williams and Harrison, and handle the pre-draft process a la carte, only doing what is in your own personal best interest.

In the end, I’m counting 18 of 32 first-round picks from 2021 as having had their fifth-year options picked up. That’s counting guys who got extensions (DeVonta Smith, Penei Sewell) with the fifth-year option factored in (Rashod Bateman, who did a lower-end extension, doesn’t fit that description). And it’s a high number, for sure.

Last year, using the same logic (which counts Jordan Love as having had his picked up), just 13 of the 32 guys taken in the first round in 2020 qualified.

That number was by far the lowest since the rookie salary scale went into effect with the 2011 draft class. But there was a caveat to it—it was also the first year that the options were fully guaranteed upon being picked up, meaning teams couldn’t simply cut the guy a year later, so long as he was healthy.

What that tells you? The 2021 class, with players such as Trevor Lawrence, Micah Parsons and Ja’Marr Chase as headliners, was a very bumper crop of high-end players. And as such, Smith and Sewell will likely be just the first of a slew of these guys to sign blockbuster extensions before the start of their fourth seasons.

I do have one last take on the Atlanta Falcons’ handling of the quarterback situation. And that’s that I would 100% understand if Kirk Cousins is still stinging a bit from the whole ordeal.

Here’s why—a reason he decided to leave Minnesota is because the Vikings were very up front with the 35-year-old about the possibility that, even in the case he stayed, they’d take a quarterback of the future high in the draft. Tying that together with the team’s willingness to guarantee part, but not all, of a second year on another contract, Cousins figured that, if he stayed, there was a good shot that he’d be on the move in 2025.

I know Cousins appreciated how open the Vikings were about their draft strategy, even if it meant him leaving.

So if you were him, how would you feel when that call came, as his new team was on the clock, to explain how the Falcons were taking his heir apparent, Michael Penix Jr., with the eighth pick? Now, I do understand why Atlanta felt the need to keep it quiet, and why GM Terry Fontenot’s experience in New Orleans in 2017, when the Chiefs knew the Saints coveted Patrick Mahomes and jumped ahead of them to get him, marked the decision not to tell Cousins of their plans.

Still, it had to be a crappy call to take if you were Cousins, considering the basis of the decision you’d made six weeks earlier. It remains to be seen, of course, if that’ll lead to any sort of early fissure in the player-team relationship there. I think they’ll be able to get past it, because head coach Raheem Morris is a phenomenal relationship guy, and Cousins is an adult. But if there are early bumps in the season, this one will be interesting to watch.

I still don’t get the people who are so into the Pittsburgh Steelers trading for a big-name veteran receiver. It’s never been Pittsburgh’s m.o. to do something like that at that particular position. And I can’t imagine trading Johnson is some sort of big needle-mover in this regard, either.

Pittsburgh’s drafted 19 receivers over the last 18 draft cycles. The highest pick spent in the bunch was on Chase Claypool, who went 49th in 2020. Yet, without spending more than that on the position, they’ve wound up with Antonio Brown, Emmanuel Sanders, Mike Wallace, Martavis Bryant, Juju Smith-Schuster, James Washington, George Pickens, Johnson and Claypool, all of whom wound up producing to varying degrees for the team.

On top of that, the last time the Steelers’ leading receiver wasn’t homegrown was in the year the United States entered World War II—1941 (Don Looney, if you’re scoring at home). And over the years, Pittsburgh has been able to replace guys such as Plaxico Burress, Wallace, Sanders and Brown as they’ve left the organization.

All of this history, of course, bodes well for the 84th pick in this year’s draft, Roman Wilson.

And probably not as well for those waiting on the Steelers to take some big swing on a vet.

I need to give my thanks to everyone, all of you included, for following along through this offseason, now that things have calmed down. That goes for our editors, and our NFL writers, and, again, for all you readers.

Conor Orr and I did this sort of thank you on the MMQB podcast last week, but I’ll repeat it here.

It’s no secret that it’s been a challenging three months at Sports Illustrated. It’d have been easy for people to take their collective foot off the gas, but I’m real proud of our NFL team for refusing to let that happen. And I’m grateful to all of you that kept coming back.