It’s Monday morning and I’m ready to begin NFL free agency. The player signing window won’t officially open for another two days, but Monday marks the start of the league’s public tampering period. actual It’s a modulation period that begins sometime during the NFL Combine over scotch and soda at Prime 47. There are transactions already concluded and loaded, ready to be officially announced the moment the tampering window opens. And I am ready to accept them. In fact, I was so obsessed with FA that I didn’t sleep well the night before, which meant my wife didn’t sleep well either. She is not happy about it. But you have to understand, my love… No reasonable person can sleep well at night if they don’t know which mid-level centers will be playing for their team next season.
Today I will finally give you an answer. Or at least a vaguely worded dispatch from Josina Anderson that may or may not speed up the process of leading me to an answer. Wheeling and trading had already begun in earnest a few days ago. The Rams decided to fuck up their pick to secure stud Chiefs CB Trent McDuffie. The Bills spoiled the pick by trading for Bears WR DJ Moore, who is under contract until 2046. And the Ravens SUPER botched a pick to grab Raiders’ edge Maxx Crosby. This is a move that could definitely change the balance of power in the AFC, as long as there is no impediment to Crosby’s imminent physicality (OOP-DEE!!!). This is all the hot action I need to make my nipples pop.
I have to work today, but my mind isn’t focused on work. It’s on my phone, and I’m already constantly swiping down to refresh my Bluesky feed for news. I’m also switching to the football channel in our company’s Slack (named #clumpdogs) to see if one of my co-workers has dropped a nugget that I would have missed. Do some work and then check again. I’ll do some more work and check it out next time. When I refresh the Bluesky feed, nothing has changed, just like the last time I refreshed. I’m still seeing the same posts about Trump doing evil Trump things. I hate this one micropost right now. This is disrupting the imminent flow of NFL information in the most disrespectful way. I’m thinking about muting that account just to create something new to get upset about next time I refresh.
The dam breaks around lunchtime. The Chiefs acquired Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III from the Seahawks. It’s a big move. Like all good posters, I have an internalized scale for measuring news impact, from “bad news” to “holy shit.” Walker gives the Chiefs a viable running attack for the first time since Jamaal Charles registered more on the Holy Shit end of my spectrum. “Oh shit!” It’s kind of a bargain, but it’s tasty enough to feel refreshing.
Today’s activities have a personal aspect. Our team is looking for a quarterback and will choose from a motley collection of losers who aren’t good enough (Tua Tagovailoa) or cheap enough (also Tua Tagovailoa) to stay with their current team. I ranked the quarterbacks based on personal preference. But our team won’t win the Super Bowl next year. They don’t even have cap space to get better. In fact, the owners came out to the combine and said: Last year we spent a ton of money on a terrible team. So don’t expect them to go trade for Joe Burrow anytime soon. So, I couldn’t sleep well in anticipation of the progress I could only see in 2026. No regrets.
Scroll, refresh, and analyze. Malik Willis, the top prospect in a serious QB class, comes off the board and goes to the Dolphins. I liked Willis on our team, but I think it sucks now that he’s somewhere else. Willis will replace Tagovailoa, who broke down in every imaginable way, costing nearly $100 million on Miami’s books after being released from the team. I refreshed again and Tagovailoa signed with the Falcons. Atlanta now has him and Michael Penix in the QB room, meaning Taylor Heinicke will start 10 games for them next season. Signing Tua isn’t a good move, but it’s noteworthy enough to post a one-off joke about it to make an impact. Extra Drew points for being someone worth joking about during free agency.
Speaking of jokes, four truly corrupt teams have decided to run wild with the cap room available. The Jets have stocked up on seniors, including former Bengal Joseph Ossai. Remember when Joseph Ossai ruined Cincinnati’s AFC title game run three years ago? Well, he’s a Jet now. The Raiders figured they didn’t have to pay Maxx Crosby and made a series of “we’re serious this time” moves, including handing Ravens C Tyler Linderbaum a $27 million AAV deal that would have ruined every other team. The Titans ink Jonathan Franklin-Myers, the best DT in this class. And then there are the Saints, who have zero cap room but still found a way to sign Travis Etienne, Kaden Elliss, and even Ryan Wright. Good punter. Our team’s punter.
Oh yes, this is our team. They warned me that this week would be relatively free, and damn, they did a good job of that. Light is gone. Promising WR Jalen Nailor left for Vegas. All they did to counter these losses was sign a rotation cornerback. Although he is a player with decent PFF grades. Over the next few months I’ll be thinking about this damn CB3 a lot more often than I should.
Meanwhile, QBs are flying off the board as the weeks go by. When I pull down to refresh, Willis is gone. Now Tua is gone (phew!). Now Geno Smith is back in New York. I wish my jaw was stronger. Now the Colts have placed a transition tag on Daniel Jones (no one knows what this means) and now they have agreed to a contract (phew because I don’t want him). But now the deal hasn’t been finalized yet (damn) and it’s only now confirmed (yayyy). Our team doesn’t have enough dance partners. Hell, even Marcus Mariota is no longer available. I can’t spend another year watching JJ McCarthy hurt both hamstrings while coming up with his new nickname. I’m going to stay glued to my phone until I get news that I don’t have to.
Refresh your feed again. Even as dusk falls and the news slows down, I keep swiping down and down. I refreshed it several times and was surprised that my skin didn’t get damaged. You might miss something every time you put your phone down, even when you go to pee. And at some point during this surfing trip, when something important comes up, I feel like I’ve made a fresh effort to make it happen. Congratulations on landing Mike Evans with the San Francisco 49ers. I did that.
By the way, it’s been a really great week out there. timing. But there is no time for sunlight. I am waiting for news. This is a position I am familiar with and has been since 2016. I have been waiting for news since President Florsheim fired James Comey during his first term. I kept switching gears to see breaking news that would change my life for the better. Trump dies, Trump goes to jail, our team trades Lamar Jackson. These things have not happened and will never happen again. But that didn’t stop me from sitting on my ass waiting for salvation instead of leaving home to find it. What am I going to do, should I watch the news? Absurd. I refuse to be the last person to know that the Steelers traded wildly overrated slob Michael Pittman. Then I will be a loser. We need your information as soon as it is processed. However, you must be able to observe this concisely. The world needs me to work on the Internet. Otherwise the world will die.
Now that Tuesday is over, the first wave of free agency is effectively over, even before legal free agency begins. In general, on the first day of the tampering period, you do not want to sign a contract with a man. So I think our team kept the fire going well. But their inaction left me exhausted for a while. I shouldn’t be here. You have to be where you can hear the seagulls. At least I should be outside where the good Lord wants me to be.
So I go out and clean the grill. And let me tell you, I scrub the shit out of that grill by scrubbing my hands and knees like my evil stepmother forced me to. While I’m cleaning the creosote off the grates and vents, I think about all the things that could happen to my phone while I’m away from it. Maybe once I get Weber clean from the whistle, we’ll come back to the news that our team has not only signed useful players, but traded for three other All-Pros, all of whom are happily cap compliant. And maybe Trump is finally dead. You never know! I can’t wait to find out what awaits me once I get back inside.
The grill was clean and freshly showered. I check my phone, hoping the news will get busier in my absence. But that wasn’t the case. Literally no free agent deals were made while I was away, and Trump remains disappointingly alive. I thought something like this would happen. I really knew it deep in my bones. I have experienced this type of disappointment so many times that it has practically become a ritual. I know what the world is like, and I know how much it tries to bring me down…
but.
But what happens when I go off the grid and something truly amazing happens? What if everyone finds out about this news before me? What happens if I fail to claim the first item? What happens if other social media outlets start bombarding me with Aaron Rodgers jokes before I have the chance? These questions nag at me even after I’ve learned literally hundreds of times that the answers to them don’t matter at all. So today, Wednesday, I’m still at home with my phone in hand, waiting for the news. Hey, Trey Hendrickson just signed with the Ravens! I did that. I will stand here forever to keep you posted if needed. That’s very likely.
