NFL Free Agency: Winners and Losers

Yahoo Sports’ Matt Harmon shares his list of winners and losers from the NFL free agency period. Including a QB from the NFC West, and long suffering fanbase, and a coach from the AFC West.

Video Transcript

[CHEERING]

MATT HARMON: I'm Yahoo Sports Matt Harmon, and here are my winners and losers from the 2021 free agency period. Let's start off positive. Let's look at the winners here.

My first winner is Ron Rivera because look, this is not a coach who wants to bring on some rookie quarterback, wants to do that whole thing. He gets himself an exciting veteran in Ryan Fitzpatrick. And look, not only is Fitzmagic going to be a nice probably good veteran stock after Washington, he's also going to be great for Terry McLaurin, the newly signed Curtis Samuel. I love all the moves that Washington has made.

Next up, another winner here is Kyler Murray. The Cardinals continue to build around their franchise quarterback. They trade for Rodney Hudson, who's still a stud center in the league. Love that one. The protection was a little bit off for Murray last year.

And look, the signing of AJ Green-- it's not exactly exciting assigning AJ Green in 2015. But if he can be an upgrade over Andy Isabella and some of these guys that have not worked out for the Cardinals, that's still going to be good news for Kyler Murray.

My last winner is the New York Jets. We knew they had money to throw around, and I like the way that they've spent it. They went after Carl Lawson, who I think is an up and coming pass rusher coming from the Bengals over there. They gave him sort of a 1B-type of edge rusher contract, and I think that's exactly what he is.

And I like the move of signing Corey Davis. They didn't give him huge, huge money. I don't know that he's necessarily going to be a top 10 stud, number 1-type of wide receiver. But he's a great guy to do the dirty work. And oh, by the way, they might not be done. Whoever's playing quarterback for the Jets is going to find their job much easier than Sam Darnold did previously.

Now as we know, all things that go up, must come down. There must be balance in the universe. So let's move on to our losers.

First one up here is the Raiders' identity is a big loser to me. I don't really understand why they've just essentially trashed their offensive line. Gabe Jackson? Whatever. Rodney Hudson though, that guy can still play.

To me, the Raiders under Jon Gruden-- they draft a first round running back. They want to be a tough, physical 1990s football team. You can't do that without a good offensive line. Even if that unit had declined a bit over the years, a full-on remake is pretty confusing to me there.

My next loser-- and I'm sorry you guys have just been losing for the better part of 25 years here. But the Chicago Bears fan base I think is a big loser from this free agency period. Look, Andy Dalton can be a serviceable starter. I think can be better than Mitch Trubisky and Nick Foles for this team.

But the fact that they held that carried out there that they could trade for Russell Wilson and then it's ripped away, and they give him the quarterback that they probably should've just gotten last year, to me, I hate the fact to think the Bears fans got their hopes up. And it was all turned to tatters there even if this is a fine quarterback situation. It's just fine. But Bears fans-- they probably want it better than just fine.

Our final loser here is the Cincinnati Bengals. Look, I don't love the one for one swap of Carl Lawson and Trey Hendrickson. Like, if you wanted to play Trey Hendrickson that type of money, why not just pay the guy that you have in Carl Lawson that you drafted and developed?

That was confusing to me. I think Lawson is a better pass rusher than Hendrickson on a down to down basis, even if Hendrickson had those flashy sack numbers from last year. Don't love that one.

I also don't love that they didn't go after some of these big name offensive linemen. I mean, Joe Burrow was under duress all last year before he got injured. Look at what Justin Herbert and the LA Chargers are forming there on their offensive line.

They went out and get Corey Linsley, a great center. I think Joe Burrow's by looking at his counterpart in LA with a little bit of jealousy there. For all your free agency in NFL news-- and you know there's going to be a ton more coming-- keep it locked in right here at Yahoo Sports.