Regrets are a part of the NFL life.
Teams double down, roll dice, bail too early, bail too late. They over-invest, under-invest and often fall in love too quickly.
What particular potential regrets stand out from the 2024 offseason as training camps loom? Here are the handful that stand out.
It’s possible the Cowboys have decided they’re likely done with Prescott, leaving them with a lame-duck walk year for the 30-year-old quarterback at $55.5 million. The alternative if that’s the case was an even more crushing salary-cap hit with Prescott off the roster.
Might as well at least play out the season with him, right?
But if that’s what’s happening here, it’s something the team could easily regret for years to come. That’s because we’re talking about the reigning MVP runner-up in his prime, and a long-term extension could have freed up oodles of cap room for the Cowboys to bolster Prescott’s supporting cast.
Is it concerning that he’s been a part of just two playoff wins in his career and that he’s thrown a combined four interceptions in back-to-back postseason losses? Sure, but the reality is tons of signal-callers have enjoyed significantly more success in their 30s than in their 20s.
The Cowboys have basically sabotaged their 2024 season by handcuffing themselves to Prescott financially and otherwise while also severely limiting their options beyond this year. Maybe Prescott will explode, in which case he’ll be even tougher to keep next offseason and the Cowboys will have likely wasted the year anyway. Or maybe he won’t come through, but Dallas will still potentially see that the grass isn’t greener elsewhere.
This feels like it’ll be a lose-lose.
Six quarterbacks were taken with the top 12 picks of the draft. The Raiders picked 13th. Kirk Cousins and Russell Wilson moved teams as veterans. The Raiders wound up with Gardner Minshew II.
While Minshew had some nice moments last year in Indianapolis and flashed at various points during previous stints with Jacksonville and Philadelphia, he’s not likely a long-term franchise quarterback.
Ditto for Aidan O’Connell, who posted a mere 83.9 passer rating as a rookie fourth-round pick in 2023.
The Raiders are otherwise quite talented, but instead of investing in draft or market maneuvers to land a quarterback with an elite ceiling, they stood pat and went super conservative at the sport’s most critical position.
With that 13th pick, they took a tight end despite the fact the first-round success rate at that position is extremely low and the fact they already have a talented young tight end on the roster.
And with plenty of money to spend in free agency, they took a 28-year-old zero-time All-Pro and zero-time Pro Bowler and turned him into the sixth-highest-paid defensive player in NFL history.
Very questionable all around.
The rebuilding Cardinals entered the offseason with nearly $60 million in cap space and very few in-house veterans to take care of. You’d think that if they were serious about maximizing their chances of excelling again in a critical season for quarterback Kyler Murray, they’d load up on talent on both sides of the ball.
And while they didn’t completely sit on their hands, they clearly could have done a lot more.
Anyone fired up about Jonah Williams and Evan Brown? Is Justin Jones a difference-maker? What about Sean Murphy-Bunting?
The Cards didn’t hand out a single contract worth $32-plus million, which is how you expect teams to act when they’re saving up to pay their quarterback big bucks. But Arizona has already done that, and Murray’s enormous cap hit is baked into this season as well as the next four.
I appreciate that the Cardinals realize they aren’t yet Super Bowl contenders and that the turnaround won’t happen overnight, but they also owe it to Murray and themselves to load up on enough talent to pave the way for a clear indication of how close he (and they) are to competitiveness.
I’m not sure they have done that here.
The Falcons really, really, really wanted a franchise quarterback this offseason. And while there are plenty of intriguing young offensive weapons in place, it’s fair to wonder if Atlanta could really afford to invest in both a big-money free agent (Kirk Cousins) and a top-10 draft pick (Michael Penix Jr.) at a single position that can only really be played by one player at a time.
Was that a luxury the Falcons had? Considering that they won seven games last year while posting the league’s fifth-lowest DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average), probably not.
Cousins has put together a solid career and he was playing quality football before suffering an Achilles injury with the Vikings in 2023, but the 12-year veteran is coming off that major injury, he’ll be 36 next month, he’s been part of just one playoff win in his professional career, and he’ll likely still be lassoed with a mediocre defense.
But because they’re paying Cousins $45 million per year, the Falcons are extremely unlikely to go to Penix unless the season has gone down the drain.
The funny thing is this is probably a regret situation either way. Cousins excels and you fall short of a Super Bowl? You’re wishing you had used that No. 8 pick on someone who could have helped get you over the top. Cousins fails, Penix excels and you fall short? You’re wishing you had used that money on someone who could have helped.
That’s the problem with hedging in this league.
Should the Jets have cut their losses on Aaron Rodgers and addressed the quarterback position via a different avenue this offseason? Doing so would have been costly, but the Denver Broncos made that sacrifice with Wilson this offseason. Sometimes you just have to admit a risk isn’t going to pan out, rather than doubling down.
That’s something Gang Green will think about if the Rodgers experiment doesn’t pay off again in 2024.
And there’s plenty of reason to believe that’ll be the case.
Rodgers is 40 now, and he wasn’t a highly effective NFL quarterback in his last healthy season in 2022. He’s of course coming off a major injury to his Achilles, and it’s not a tremendously good sign that he’s missing offseason work with the team to travel.
Is he really in this? And even if he is, what’s left in the tank?
Getting rid of Rodgers this offseason wouldn’t have saved the Jets much money, if any at all. But they had a decent amount of draft capital, and that might have been an opportunity to swallow that financial hit and start fresh.
Soon enough, they might simply regret ever going down this path.