The Atlanta Falcons may not be breaking the bank just in free agency just yet, but their NFC South rival Carolina Panthers are. Just months after the Panthers were crowned NFC South champions, they are already spending big in free agency with a wild deal to Eagles' star defender Jaelan Phillips.
The Panthers reportedly agreed to terms with Phillips on a staggering four-year, $120 million deal. No wonder they were able to poach him away from a return to Philadelphia at the 11th hour, because they backed up the brinks truck for him in a way that no other reasonable front office was willing to.
While it stings to see the Panthers land such an impact player, this price tag makes it feel a lot better. Carolina are the kings of overpaying for their guys. Can I remind you of the Bryce Young trade, or the trade for Xavier Legette? Dan Morgan is such an enigma of a general manager, it's awesome to see.
The Falcons are standing pat, but they also don't have the money to be making splash signings like this. They are chasing value with the limited cap space they have in an attempt to bolster the roster, rather than overpaying a player with money they don't deserve, which makes more sense anyways.
The Falcons are better off not overpaying players like the Panthers did with Jaelan Phillips
Phillips is only 26 and should be a key piece on defense for the Panthers, but making him the eighth-highest-paid edge rusher in the NFL is where you lose me. He's probably gonna make more than Trey Hendrickson on the open market, and he will make more than both Nik Bonnito and Josh Hines-Allen.
That is a lot of money for a good-not-great player. He had 8.5 sacks as a rookie, but his sack numbers have steadily declined since then. They also looked at Odafe Oweh apparently, but instead, they decided to burn money like there's no tomorrow to land the MIami product, which is still wild to me.
The NFC South is a wide open enough division that even with a price tag like this, this could be the sort of aggressive move the Panthers need to stay atop the division standings. And since they finished third-to-last in the NFL in sacks, they needed to make a big splash to rewrite the narrative.
It probably wouldn't have been the move I would've made, but I digress. There's a reason I am not running an NFL front office, but regardless, this is rich. On the bright side, at least it wasn't the Bucs or Saints who signed him, instead it was the little brother of the division that made this asinine decision.