Do Free Agency Grades Tell Us Anything? Looking at Media Free Agency Grades 2020-2025

Now that we're at the end of March, we've been deluged with "free agency grades" that tell us which teams best navigated this part of the offseason. Does it mean anything?

Jonathan Allen headlined one of the most well-regarded free agency classes in the NFL this year. Photo by Brooke Sutton/Getty Images

Do “free agency grades” matter? In a broad sense, of course not.

Nothing matters.

That aside, it’s pretty interesting to figure out whether analysts can meaningfully weigh the success or failure of a team in free agency.

At the moment, the Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears and Washington Commanders are receiving near-universal praise for their performance in the NFL’s “free agency period,” or the first few weeks following the beginning of the new league year, when terminating contracts expire.

Those praising the Bears also understand that the Bears have received high marks for their last three offseasons and have produced a collective record of 15-36 in that time; it’s easy to be sarcastic about this kind of praise.

Nevertheless, it’s important to point out that smart free agency acquisitions have enabled teams like the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Rams to Lombardis, while agile navigation of the trade market has helped the Kansas City Chiefs in their dynastic bid.

Did we identify those beforehand? Well, the Eagles earned above-average grades from analysts in each of the last three offseasons for their free agency work and earned a bevy of “A” grades from media commentators in the 2024 offseason.

The Rams, on the other hand, earned below-average grades from commentators in the three offseasons preceding their Super Bowl win.

Maybe it’s all made up and the points don’t matter.

So, I looked at the free agency grades given out between the opening of the new league year and the end of the month for the past six offseasons to see if it can meaningfully help predict team outcomes.

What did I find?

Every Analyst Has Different “Grading” Criteria

Not every evaluator will approach free agency the same way and will have different criteria when judging teams. Some have strong opinions about whether teams should “tank,” or intentionally shed big contracts and position themselves as potential losers to set up a better draft slot. Others evaluate teams assuming that they have one incentive: to maximize wins.

The Jets signed Justin Fields. Was that supposed to help them? Is the goal to win more games? Do we even think he’s good? Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Image

Some analysts do more to account for cap situation while others are less diligent and happen to grade teams with more cap space more favorably. And of course, analysts have disagreements about the value of particular players – some derided the Broncos for trading for Russell Wilson in 2022 while many more applauded the move.

This is, by its nature, an imprecise exercise. Not every analyst produced team grades in every year, and the decreasing effectiveness of internet search (as well as website changes killing links) has made it difficult to find previous team grades, even after using internet archive tools and Boolean search operators.

The larger question here is not “are free agency grades accurate?” but rather “how helpful are free agency grades?”

This might seem like a useless distinction, but the key is acknowledging that an “accurate” grade may not be helpful in predicting team wins. That is to say, a team can have made all the right moves in free agency, only signing good players to smart deals, and still get worse.

If a team is smartly building around a second-year quarterback coming off of a promising, but not dominant, rookie year, they’ll receive a good grade. But if that quarterback fails to progress, then they won’t win many games. The free agency grade in this instance could be accurate in that every player that they signed was a valuable addition, but not helpful because it was reliant on something outside of the control of free agency.

We can also see if there is a bias for teams with more cap space – if we see a correlation between high grades and a large pool of initial cap space, then we know there’s a good chance that football writers aren’t adequately accounting for this element.

Free agency is also not a period that defines teams so much as it is meant to change the team’s odds over last year. So instead of just looking at a team’s record following a free agency period, it might be better to check out their change in record over time – if their record improved, then free agency may have played a critical role in that.

With all that in mind, what are the results?

Using Free Agency Grades to Predict The Regular Season