The NFL Draft is Over, Now What?

With The NFL Draft coming to a close and the last selection being made crowning a new Mr. Irrelevant, stage 3 of the NFL offseason begins. When evaluating your football team, organizations have a few roads they could take to improve their situation. Many teams may take advantage of the first stage being free agency. During this period big name free agents get new contracts, and teams make decisions that could affect their franchise in one of 2 ways. The Indianapolis Colts who usually skip this stage became a player in the 2006 Free Agency class. They picked up the one final piece, they felt they needed to get over the hump, and that was kicker Adam Vinatieri. They won the Super Bowl the next year and Adam was a big part of that. The other way your team could be affected is obviously in a negative way as has been the case with both Albert Haynesworth and Asante Samuel. Both were big money guys and both were on the trading block this year. If your organization chooses against this, they are opting to go younger and improve through the draft. The upcoming 3rd stage is also very interesting as big name guys become available but at a much lower cost. Guys like Terrell Owens, and newly available players like John Henderson, and Adalius Thomas could become the final piece to your team. Many big name guys have yet to be released but will be prior to the deadline. It's these guys looking to resurrect their careers with other teams that makes training camp so interesting.