The legendary Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” It’s great life advice and all, but there are instances where you also need to remember that sometimes, not moving is the best move of all.
Unfortunately for NFL GMs, there is no mulligan on the many big-time mistakes they made earlier this offseason. Whether it was a trade, free agent signing or draft table decision, it didn’t take long for NFL teams to quickly regret a move that was supposed to pay major dividends.
With that, let’s dive into 10 massive 2023 NFL offseason moves that teams are already regretting.
Panthers Trade Up To Snag Bryce Young First Overall
Looking to find their next franchise quarterback, the Carolina Panthers gave up a king’s ransom to the Chicago Bears for the first overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
The Panthers traded their 2023 first and second-round picks, a 2024 first-rounder, a 2025 second-rounder and star wide receiver DJ Moore to the Bears in order to obtain the top selection — which was used on Alabama QB Bryce Young.
Owner David Tepper had hoped that pairing Young with new head coach and renowned offensive guru Frank Reich would help the Panthers return to relevance in the NFC.
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Less than a year later…
Reich was fired after a 1-10 start. Young has stood no chance behind an offensive line that couldn’t block a traffic cone. 33-year-old Adam Thielen is the team’s only pass-catcher that’s producing anything.
Free agent signing Miles Sanders, coming off a career year in Philadelphia, lost the RB 1 job to Chuba Hubbard. Tight end Hayden Hurst received a $21.75 million deal to put up third-stringer numbers. Yippee.
Oh, and the Panthers’ 2024 first-round pick going to Chicago will be a top-two selection. That means Carolina will have missed out on USC’s Caleb Williams or North Carolina’s Drake Maye, much more polished prospects than Young.
So to think Carolina could have drafted two other studs with their 2023 first and second-round picks, kept Moore and gotten a chance at Williams or Maye. Woof. Talk about an atrocious use of resources.
Saints Sign Derek Carr For $150 Million
After two years of a revolving door at quarterback, the New Orleans Saints swung for the fences and handed former Las Vegas Raider Derek Carr a four-year deal worth $150 million — including $70 million in guaranteed money.
Well, it didn’t take too long for the Saints to feel buyer’s remorse over this. Carr hasn’t even been half the quarterback we saw for nearly a decade in Vegas. And as a result, New Orleans is likely to miss the postseason for a third straight year despite playing in football’s worst division …..and despite the luxury of playing one of football’s softest schedules this year.
Carr’s production has been below mediocre all season long. He’s also refusing to own up to his own mistakes, often seen screaming at his own teammates when he’s the one who’s not performing up to his usual standards.
Carr has suddenly become injury-prone, too, having left games against the Packers, Vikings and Lions with an injury. When Jameis Winston came in to relieve Carr, the offense seemed to operate much more efficiently.
So the Saints are stuck with a burdensome $150 million deal…and they once again passed on the obvious need to rebuild. Going all-in for Carr, Jamaal Williams et al has not paid off in the slightest, and now this team is stuck in no man’s land.
Raiders Give Jimmy Garoppolo $72.75 Million
You hockey fans know how the 2016 NHL free agency class is remembered for being full of lucrative contracts to big-named players that wound up becoming disastrous? The 2023 NFL class for QBS heading to new teams might end up being even worse.
Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo, Bryce Young…and Aaron Rodgers perhaps? Woof.
After releasing Carr, the Raiders thought they were upgrading at QB by signing an inferior Garoppolo to a three-year deal worth $72.75 million.
The contract looked like a disaster at the time, and it looks worse now. Did the Raiders forget that this ultra-injury-prone guy has only played a full season once? And that he’s never thrown for 4,000 passing yards nor 30 TDS in a season?
Needless to say, it didn’t take long for the Raiders to regret this move. Garoppolo missed two games to injury then got benched in favor of rookie Aidan O’Connell after a Week 8 road loss to the Detroit Lions.
Garoppolo went 3-6 in his six starts and threw for just 1,205 yards and seven touchdowns against nine picks for a 78.1 QB rating that would mark his worst in a season since becoming a starter.
Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler, who brought Jimmy G over to Las Vegas in the first place, were fired after that Week 8 loss to Detroit. And to think that Ziegler was so badly wanting to trade up for CJ Stroud, only to be overruled by McDaniels…
Keep on trying, Raiders. You might find a franchise QB and win again some day…
Jets Use First-Round Pick On Will McDonald IV
Having landed Aaron Rodgers in a blockbuster deal with the Green Bay Packers, the Jets’ primary goal should have been to fix up their woeful o-line or to add another offensive weapon for the four-time MVP.
Instead, the Jets used the No. 15 pick on Iowa State defensive end Will McDonald IV…even though the front seven wasn’t the least of their concerns. They already had Quinnen Williams, CJ Mosley, Jermaine Johnson, Quintion Johnson and John Franklin-Myers patrolling the secondary.
So Rodgers suffered a season-ending torn Achilles minutes into his Jets debut. The injury could have easily been avoided if the Jets actually pieced together a decent offensive line to help A-Rod.
McDonald has seen roughly 16 percent of the Jets’ defensive snaps and about one-third of their special teams snaps. So uh, why did a team in win-now mode use a pick on a position that was already a strength, knowing darn well they weren’t gonna use him much anyway?
Patriots Swap Jakobi Meyers For JuJu Smith-Schuster
In the latest edition of “Bill Belichick has no idea what he’s doing with wide receivers”…
Jakobi Meyers was the New England Patriots’ top receiver from 2020 to 2022, surpassing the 50-catch and 700-yard marks both times. This included an 83-catch, 866-yard campaign in 2021.
Meyers was Mac Jones’ favorite and most reliable target during the latter’s first two seasons.
But Belichick screwed his QB by letting Meyers join the Raiders on a three-year deal worth $33 million. To replace the big-bodied receiver, Belichick gave the injury-prone JuJu Smith-Schuster the same deal: $33 million over three years.
While Meyers has been the perfect No. 2 pass-catcher to Davante Adams in Sin City, Smith-Schuster has been practically invisible in New England.
He’s seeing less than two-thirds of the team’s total offensive snaps, isn’t even a regular starter and is basically posting one-quarter of the receiving yards per game he averaged in Kansas City a year ago.
Smith-Schuster had 25 catches for 170 yards and a touchdown through his first 10 games with the Pats. With no game-changing weapons at his side, Jones has also lost his starting job and will most certainly be on a new team next year. So, how did swapping out Meyers for Smith-Schuster work again? Mr. Belichick. This oughta go down as his last great mistake in New England — assuming Belichick doesn’t return next year
Chiefs Replace Orlando Brown Jr. With Jawaan Taylor
The Chiefs let four-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle Orlando Brown Jr. walk to free agency, and he wound up signing with the rival Cincinnati Bengals on a bargain four-year pact worth $64 million.
To replace Brown Jr., the Chiefs curiously gave an even bigger contract to an inferior offensive lineman in Jawaan Taylor — landing the former Jacksonville Jaguar on a four-year deal worth $80 million.
Though KC still boasts one of the best interior offensive line units in football, Taylor has been a major liability at tackle. Through KC’s first 12 games, Taylor had allowed three sacks while committing a ridiculous 16 penalties, according to Pro Football Focus.
As well, PFF graded Taylor at 52.5 through those 12 games — meaning the $80 million man is playing as a backup-caliber player. Clearly, the Chiefs’ bold idea of swapping out Brown Jr. for a more expensive and less-reliable offensive lineman hasn’t worked out. Brett Veach may be the NFL’s best GM right now, but this has been by far his biggest swing-and-miss so fa
Raiders Take Tyree Wilson At No. 7 Overall
The Raiders were desperate for another game-changer on defense to complement superstar edge rusher Maxx Crosby. It felt like they found their guy in Texas Tech’s Tyree Wilson, whom they selected at No. 7 overall.
Hindsight is 20/20, but the move has become regrettable, and quickly, in Sin City.
Through his first 12 games, Wilson had just 1.5 sacks and one forced fumble while playing less than half of the Raiders’ defensive snaps. As well, PFF graded him at a horrible 42.2 — meaning he’s simply done way more bad than good when on the field.
Again, why would you use a valuable pick on a guy that you weren’t planning to use much in the first place, especially when you’re in win-now mode like the Raiders?
And to think of all the other studs the Raiders passed on that went soon after Wilson: Jalen Carter, Broderick Jones, Christian Gonzalez, Joey Porter Jr… Oof that’s a bad miss.
Only fitting that the disastrous Ziegler-McDaniels era ended with one more miss with their final first-round pick, huh?
Bears Gift Tremaine Edmunds With $72 Million
The Chicago Bears finished with football’s worst scoring D in 2022, prompting the front office to make drastic changes there.
GM Ryan Poles handed lucrative contracts to DeMarcus Walker, TJ Edwards and Tremaine Edmunds to shore up the front seven. It was the latter who got the biggest payday at $72 million over four years.
Edmunds carried the “buyer beware” label well before free agency opened. That was always gonna be a lot of money for an off-ball linebacker whose last Pro Bowl season came in 2020.
Secondly, it didn’t take a genius to figure that Edmunds looked better than he really was because of his star-studded supporting cast in the Buffalo Bills’ defense. Sure enough, he’s been exposed as a merely average linebacker since joining the Bears.
Not only are his usually-stellar stats nothing close to what we saw in Buffalo, but the good folks at PFF are no fans of Edmunds — who barely grades out as a “below average” level player.
The Bears thought they were getting a do-it-all workhorse linebacker who would flourish without Matt Milano, Von Miller, Ed Oliver, Tre’Davious White, Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer as his teammates. Don’t say we didn’t warn you, Bears fans, that this signing would always be a mess..
To think of all the other more impactful players Chicago could have signed for that $72 million instead…
Chargers Take THE WRONG Receiver In Round One
With the No. 21 selection in the draft, the Los Angeles Chargers decided to land another weapon for superstar signal-caller Justin Herbert. They settled on TCU’s Quentin Johnston — the second receiver taken right after the Seattle Seahawks took Jaxon Smith-Njigba at No. 20.
JSN has been a stud in Seattle. The next two guys taken after Johnston? Wide receivers Zay Flowers and Jordan Addison to the Baltimore Ravens and Minnesota Vikings, respectively — who also look like rising stars themselves.
Making Johnston’s lack of production frustrating is the fact that the Chargers lost top wideout Mike Williams for the year in Week 3 with a torn ACL. Yet even with the opportunity to step up as a playmaker, Johnston just isn’t getting open and making zero impact.
With Wililams returning next year, there’s no guarantee that Johnston will be any better in year two.
Other stud receivers the Bolts passed on include Los Angeles Rams superstar Puka Nacua and the likes of Josh Downs, Tank Dell, Jayden Reed, Rashee Rice and Demario Douglas. Heck, running backs Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson might finish with more receiving yards than Johnston.
Giants Extend Daniel Jones For $160 Million
Another classic case of “It seemed like a good idea at the time…”
Daniel Jones turned in a career year under new head coach Brian Daboll in 2022, leading the New York Giants to a surprise postseason appearance. The magic didn’t end there, with Danny Dimes leading the G-Men to a stunning upset over the Minnesota Vikings in the Wild Card Round.
The Giants were convinced that Daboll had unlocked Jones’ potential, so the 2019 first-round pick got a $160 million extension over four years. A whopping $82 million of that money came in guarantees, too.
Before Jones suffered a season-ending ACL tear against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 9, he was piecing together the worst year of his young NFL career: A personal-worst 151.5 passing yards per game, a career-worst 70.5 QB rating and a ridiculous 30 sacks taken in just six games.
Jones lost five of his six starts, tossing just 909 yards and two touchdowns against six interceptions with four fumbles. The dual-threat QB also averaged 10 less rushing yards per contest compared to his 2022 campaign.
Turns out, 2022 wasn’t Jones’ breakout year. It was a mirage. And with the structure of his contract, the Giants can’t get out of Jones’ deal until 2025 at earliest.
The moral of the story: When a QB has three crappy years and one good one, maybe give him a “prove-it” deal instead of $160 million.
What other offseason moves are NFL teams already regretting?
