Is anyone else confused with the way the NFL handles free agency? Or is it just me. There where reports of this player going here and that player going there and while all of this is going on none of these moves can be official until free agency starts this afternoon. Why doesn’t the NFL either start free agency earlier or just not allow teams to have contact with free agents until the actual date they can sign them. By the time free agency starts this afternoon there won’t be any actual free agents left to sign. Well let’s take a look at who’s going where.
As expected the hot position was quarterback with all three Minnesota Vikings quarterbacks from last season finding new teams. Case Keenum will be joining the Denver Broncos while Sam Bradford is headed to the Arizona Cardinals and Teddy Bridgewater is going to be with the New York Jets. The Jets also decided to bring back last years starter Josh McCown; so you have to figure him and Bridgewater will compete to be the starter. It was announced yesterday that McCown is the starting quarterback right now. I don’t know why they need to announce a starting quarterback in March, but the Jets did. Even though it was reported that Drew Brees was offered $60 million dollars in guaranteed money from a “mystery” team he choose to re-sign with the New Orleans Saints. Now the big quarterback on the free agent market was going to be Kirk Cousins. After being hit with the franchise tag two seasons in a row by the Washington Redskins Cousins was allowed to go out on the free agent market and every team that will sign a quarterback today was in on Cousins. So where did Cousins end up you ask, he will sign a three year deal with the Vikings for a guaranteed $84 million dollars. It’s the third highest amount of guaranteed money in a contract in NFL history. So that’s who’s going where today as far as the quarterbacks are concerned.
Interestingly I expect almost all of these teams to take a quarterback in the upcoming draft to develop as their future starter. Even though the Jets have five quarterbacks on their roster adding McCown and Bridgewater to Bryce Petty, Christian Hackenberg and Joel Stave I fully expect them to select a quarterback with their 1st round pick. The Cardinals not only added Bradford, but brought in Mike Glennon to back him up since Bradford hasn’t played a full 16 games since 2012. Arizona is currently sitting with the 15th pick in the 1st round of the upcoming draft. It wouldn’t be a shock at all if they moved up or took their future quarterback with that pick. The Broncos have the 5th pick in the 1st round and there are reports that General Manager John Elway is attending Baker Mayfield’s pro day at Oklahoma. If the Broncos decide that Paxton Lynch isn’t their future guy at quarterback they could take that guy at #5. I wouldn’t expect the Saints or the Vikings to spent their 1st round pick on a quarterback unless they see him as the best player on the board, but I wouldn’t be to surprised if they added a young quarterback with one of their draft picks.
Who do you think got the best end of the quarterback signings?
Now of course there will be many other moves made today, but the quarterbacks have been the big focus of the off season; so I wanted to stay with that position.
I’m sure there are some people out there rejoicing that when the New York Mets reassigned some players to minor league camp that Tim Tebow was one of them. I’m not sure why, but there are a lot of people who are very excited to see Tebow fail.
It wasn’t any real surprise when the Mets reassigned Tebow to minor league camp since he went 1 for 18 in spring training. Tebow also struck out 11 times in those 18 at bats.
Tebow was hampered a little bit this spring with a sprained left ankle. It was a very strange injury as Tebow hit a sprinkler head and turned the ankle, but he didn’t use that as an excuse.
Tebow isn’t on the Mets 40-man roster, but can still appear in games for New York he’d just have to be brought over from the minor league side.
Now on the Sports Time Radio podcast I like to tease Dan the Man and Schaumburg Stu as Cubs fans about the first big free agent signing Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer made for the Cubs. That of course was right handed pitcher Edwin Jackson who got a 4 year $44 million dollar deal from the Cubs in January of 2013. Jackson never played out of full contract with the Cubs as he was released by the team in July of 2015, but believe it or not he’s still in baseball.
Jackson was an All-Star in 2009 when he was with the Detroit Tigers. He was also a member of the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals that won a World Series. Don’t forget that as a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks Jackson threw a 149 pitch no-hitter against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Jackson made his major league debut for the Los Angeles Dodgers on September 9th of 2003. While Jackson never pitched in more than 8 games in a season for the Dodgers it was the start of a career that now sees Jackson with the Washington Nationals for a second tier of duty. In between Jackson has appeared in the major leagues for 12 different teams.
Jackson is just one team away from tying for the major league record of most teams played for. Jackson is currently tied with Mike Morgan, Ron Villone and Matt Stairs for 2nd place behind only Octavio Dotel who pitched for 13 major league teams.
Jackson has had a solid spring for the Nationals and has a chance to end up in their bullpen. Jackson has appeared in 4 games covering 9 innings. He’s given up 3 runs while walking 3 and striking out 8, his ERA this spring is 3.00. Do you think Jackson finds a spot in the Nationals bullpen? and if not could he be on to his 13th team to tie that record?
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