2022 NFL Offseason Primer: Aaron Rodgers, Franchise Tags, Free Agency and More

Will Russell Wilson be traded? What happens to Eric Bieniemy? Check out the top story lines to follow in the coming months.

Last offseason, we thought Matthew Stafford would be kicking off a veteran quarterbacking carousel when in reality he may have just been kicking off the idea of quarterback movement as leverage, much like when owners start listing the names of random cities they’ve been to in order to extort a new stadium deal from the city they’re already strangling. We’ve seen quarterbacks more comfortably flirt with the open market, whether to win more creature comforts or to find out how elastic their own franchise is when it comes to their willingness to appease. The expected bonanza, though, never quite materialized.

Will that be the norm from here on out? Maybe one seismic departure every few seasons followed by a slow trickle of complementary maneuvers? If that’s the case, will the potential of quarterback movement hold the rest of this offseason hostage?

Those answers and more can be found here. Welcome to the 2022 offseason primer, where we’ll map out who and what you should be paying attention to.

Early to mid-March

Aaron Rodgers’s decision

Rodgers’s increasing distrust of the press has led to some fantastical offseason rumors every time one puts their ear to the ground. There’s either no way he’s staying or no way he’s going, with every scenario in between. As we wrote a few weeks ago when Nathaniel Hackett got the Broncos job, their relationship is absolutely strong. It’s something we heard about in the immediate aftermath of Rodgers’s post-draft scorched-earth foot-stomping last spring. The $26 million worth of dead money is not a prohibitive number anymore, given how we’ve seen other smart franchises take on the financial anchor over the past two seasons without much difficulty. The Rams, after all, just won the Super Bowl with a chunk of Jared Goff’s contract hanging off the back of the boat.

In that vein, it would not be shocking to see general managers line up to put a package together. The last two teams to win a Super Bowl were loaded rosters that went head hunting at the quarterback position when developmental efforts failed. It is a thing now, and general managers no longer have to fear an air of desperation. They instead will be considered trendy.

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The Packers are bringing back an old Rodgers lieutenant in Tom Clements to replace departed quarterbacks coach Luke Getsy, which may or may not be a sign that they want to organize the personnel for Rodgers to ensure he doesn’t start carving his way out of Green Bay via an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show.

While many are speculating that Rodgers’s decision is the one that will kick off the offseason, I disagree. There are probably a handful of teams who are legitimately in on Rodgers, most of whom should responsibly have some other backup plans. My ultimate guess is that one or two teams have a small sliver of legitimate hope, and 30 others are operating business as usual.

Clarity on the Colts’ quarterbacking situation

To me, this is going to be the major domino. The Colts are the best-positioned franchise to host a veteran quarterback. If I’m a veteran, I much prefer going to compete in the complete disarray that is the AFC South, with a skilled play-caller like Frank Reich and a blank slate in terms of leadership. Replacing Carson Wentz, if the Colts are indeed headed in that direction, is infinitely easier than replacing Tom Brady or the Drew Brees/Sean Payton void. This is assuming, of course, that the Steelers are going the draft-and-develop route. If Pittsburgh is on the market, organizationally, they would be a first-in-line proposition for any skilled veteran who wanted to enjoy his remaining years.

While the Rams’ success may motivate some hesitant general managers to craft a Russell Wilson package or perhaps chase some other veteran like Derek Carr or Jimmy Garoppolo*, it would seem the Colts have positioned themselves out front of the market this year. Parties know they’re looking. It feels inevitable, save for the only unknown: What they can get for Wentz, who may enter 2022 as a reclamation project for a team that finishes a distant fourth or fifth in quarterbacking dominoes this year (Panthers? Dolphins? Jaguars? Browns? Commanders?).

Gauging the seriousness of Russell Wilson trade rumors

Wilson continues to have his cake and eat it, too, in terms of public opinion. Outwardly, there are the legally bulletproof statements professing a desire to win, intimating that he wants to do so in Seattle while theoretically allowing his agent to find greener pastures elsewhere. The Seahawks got a legitimate trade offer last year from the Bears and could find themselves bombarded this offseason leading up to the draft. Here’s what I find most interesting about any and all of those negotiations: What would motivate the Seahawks to do it now? Wilson’s dead cap cuts in half next year. He’s entering his age-35 season in 2023, and they could defer any package until next season when the picks could be infinitely more valuable. This draft lacks a superstar quarterback and thus lacks the kind of necessary resource scarcity that helps those picks multiply. If Wilson refuses to play, so what? The Seahawks were going to be bad if they traded him, and they’ll be bad with him sitting on the bench. Eventually, someone will trade for him. They can do it on their own terms.

Post-combine whispers about Kyler Muray

With the Indianapolis rumor mill back in full swing, we should get a clearer picture of what’s happening between the Cardinals and Kyler Murray. Arizona’s anonymously leaked fodder to ESPN clearly tried to paint Murray as the aggressor, someone who was “self-centered” and “finger-pointing.” The Cardinals then released a public statement to try and save face. (Do we really think Murray doesn’t know where the anonymous report came from? And, consequently, what does the public statement mean to him?) Finally, Murray released his own statement. While everyone is assuming this will calm down, Murray is a man with options, someone who could easily walk away from football into a post-lockout baseball world and find more safety and longevity (and perhaps a longer, fully-guaranteed contract).

Projecting the top of the quarterback crop for 2022

At some point, some team is going to convince themselves that taking a quarterback in the first round is a good idea. The proceeding groundswell of hype that follows will be swift and immediate. While any team is theoretically in the mix, the Steelers, Panthers, Falcons, Broncos, Commanders and Titans could make the most sense. This is not 2018, where one could hurl a dart at a board and come away with someone who could energize the fan base. That doesn’t erase the fact that teams have needs, ones which sometimes don’t match up to a year where a position group is particularly strong.

Franchise tag window

We haven’t heard much about the tag this year even though there could be some serious free agency ramifications stemming from decisions made over the next few weeks. The deadline to tag a free agent is March 8 at 3:59 p.m.

Players who could get tagged that are worth watching include:
• Jesse Bates, S, Cincinnati Bengals
• Davante Adams, WR, Green Bay Packers
• Orlando Brown, LT, Kansas City Chiefs
• Dalton Schultz, TE, Dallas Cowboys

One random note: The franchise tag for offensive line talent remains one of the best deals in sports. Projected totals for 2022 would still give teams, for example, the Chiefs, a chance to lock up Orlando Brown for almost $10 million less than Trent Williams per year. That’s astounding. While Brown will ultimately get a long-term deal, the Chiefs could take the season to figure out how they must retool their approach to maximize the early prime Patrick Mahomes window.

What happens to Eric Bieniemy?

Bieniemy’s contract expired at the end of the season and he was not hired as an NFL head coach. Unfortunately, Bieniemy has spent the better part of three seasons as the face of the league’s minority coaching crisis and now may not even return to the Chiefs at all. Kansas City lost its top offensive assistant in the pipeline, Mike Kafka, to the offensive coordinator job in New York. While this feels like coaching minutiae contained to one NFL franchise, the tentacles here are widespread. If he’s not brought back to Kansas City, why? If he isn’t hired by another team to be their offensive coordinator … why? Will there be some answers as it relates to one of the biggest mysteries in coaching over the last few years?

Mid-March to early April

What will the free-agent market look like?

While everyone was concerned last offseason that a depressed cap situation would lead to a difficult free agency market, Williams still managed to sign a $23 million per year contract. The Patriots binged on affordable talent and shoved their way back into the playoffs. The Giants lobbed top-seven receiver money at Kenny Golladay. And while the cap this year will jump significantly, it’s important to note, as our friends at Over The Cap have been doing for a while, that this is still not what teams expected to be spending two years ago. So much of this strategic spending might have been set in stone more than a year ago. Will some clubs waiver, especially given that no one is completely jacked with space this year? (Currently, the Dolphins, Chargers and Jaguars lead the way with more than $55 million apiece.)

Top free agents this year include:
• Terron Armstead, LT, New Orleans Saints
• Davante Adams, WR, Green Bay Packers
• Chandler Jones, EDGE, Arizona Cardinals
• J.C. Jackson, DB, New England Patriots
• Chris Godwin, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• Von Miller, EDGE, Los Angeles Rams
• Odell Beckham, WR, Los Angeles Rams
• Tyrann Mathieu, S, Kansas City Chiefs
• Marcus Williams, S, New Orleans Saints
• Mike Williams, WR, Los Angeles Chargers
• Jesse Bates, S, Cincinnati Bengals
• Brandon Scherff, G, Washington Commanders
• De’Vondre Campbell, LB, Green Bay Packers

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Will there be a sense of urgency at this year’s league meetings?

While the romantic among us could imagine this year’s league meetings in Palm Beach as a kind of heroic moment for Roger Goodell to rescue a morally free-falling league from cannibalizing itself, the truth is that they probably will all sit around and refresh bank accounts, LOLing at all of us believing this league could somehow resemble the one built on genuine love of sport roughly a century ago. The Cowboys are mired in scandal. The Commanders are bogged down in scandal. The Dolphins have been credibly accused of tanking as the league enters an obsessive love affair with any and all gambling outfits willing to carry the shield. There is the minority coaching scandal; there is the Jon Gruden lawsuit.

All of this should be taken care of before chipping away at any of the outstanding on-field issues, such as COVID-19 protocol, growing unhappiness with overtime rules and what to do about the increasing impossibility of officiating NFL games. The NFL cannot fix itself as an on-field entity until it starts properly policing itself. Another line that is certain to elicit some laughs from The Breakers resort this year.

April and beyond…

What does the future of watching football look like?

I think a lot of people are overlooking the Amazon broadcast stream of Thursday Night Football this year. It will give us a pretty clear indication, as a society, of how willing we are to cut the cord and stream something exclusively online. Will there be lag issues? What will Twitter be like for people obsessively watching the Seahawks in Fairbanks, Alaska, when we’re five minutes ahead? Are we ready for this? How will a newcomer to the broadcast landscape look and feel? What will it sound like?

A more pressing question will be: What will this do to the increasingly robust announcing market? Sean McVay was discussed by broadcasting headhunters this year. Payton left because of broadcasting headhunters (and the ability to sit out a 2022 season in which the Saints will have to contend with all the cap gymnastics they’ve undergone over the last decade). As broadcasting money paces with, or eclipses, coaching money, what will happen to folks like McVay, tired of the burnout, looking for a break? Gruden could have innovated one of the most critical future staples of the coaching position: the broadcast sabbatical. Not a bad way to spend your pseudo-retirement plotting out the next move.

Who will buy the Broncos?

Jerry Richardson announced the Panthers were for sale in December 2017 following damning accusations made by former employees in a Sports Illustrated piece. By May 2018, David Tepper had a purchase agreement to buy the club. Would the Broncos deal move quicker given that they are one of the most sought-after franchises in professional sports?

There is a great deal of pressure on this, and at some point, the NFL needs to diversify its ownership group, which is why we’ve been hearing a lot about Byron Allen of late. (Allen, the CEO of Entertainment Group, has said he will put together a bid to buy the franchise.) While there is plenty of focus on names like Peyton Manning and Jeff Bezos, the league is contending with a full-scale diversity crisis. An increasingly large percentage of their workforce is Black. An embarrassingly low percentage of their management, ownership and coaching is Black. Regardless, the purchase price of the Broncos will blow away anything we’ve seen in modern sports history. Whoever leads the charge will need not only deep pockets but an ability to represent what the NFL is going to be decades from now. An asset of this caliber won’t hit the public again for years.

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What will we learn during the NFL draft this year?

Without much of a focus on quarterbacks, this draft could give us a nice indication of where the game is headed, both defensively and from an offensive nuts-and-bolts standpoint. The running game had a hell of a renaissance and, perhaps, due to its reframing, has again befriended a more analytically minded crowd populating front offices. In recent years, we’ve seen the scramble for interior pass rush, off-ball linebackers and hybrid tight ends. What will hit us this year? The third round and beyond is usually quite telling in that regard.

*I’m sticking with my plan not to address Deshaun Watson as a quarterback on the trade market until his case is properly adjudicated. To catch up on SI’s essential coverage of the Texans quarterback, click here and here. There are a lot of parties involved who deserve to have their case properly investigated by authorities before we turn their difficult personal experiences into a preamble for trade discussion.