One move can make or break an NFL team's season. Where would the Vikings, for example, be right now if they hadn't signed quarterback Sam Darnold last spring? How are the Eagles feeling about the offseason addition of running back Saquon Barkley? In the big picture, the Chiefs trading up to grab quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the 2017 draft probably made the franchise billions of dollars when factoring in local revenue, extra playoff games, increased exposure and the countless fans who are going to grow up supporting the team because they fell in love with football while watching Mahomes.
Those moves have all worked out well for their respective franchises, but others don't go quite as well. I'm going to talk about those moves. I've gone through the NFL's 32 franchises and identified the worst decision each has made over the past five years, going back to the start of 2020. Then, I've ranked those decisions from least damaging to most damaging.
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These decisions cut in all kinds of different directions. Many of them are additions to the roster, either via free agency, the draft or trades. Some are coaching choices. Tampering violations are even in the running. In each case, I'm evaluating the outcome. If the process was clearly bad at the time, that's a bonus, but this is measuring the severity of each wrong choice, not why something happened.
There are a few trends that pop up. Players get drafted at low-ceiling positions. Teams overestimate their ability to sign the right player in free agency. Trades for quarterbacks go horribly wrong. Those failures shouldn't discourage teams from signing free agents or taking big swings on passers, but they do contextualize the risk. Things can go very, very wrong.
Let's start with the least damaging move of the 32, in Tampa Bay, where the rich seemed to be getting richer, only for injuries to sink a significant free agent signing:
Jump to a team:
ARI | ATL | BAL | BUF | CAR | CHI | CIN
CLE | DAL | DEN | DET | GB | HOU | IND
JAX | KC | LAC | LAR | LV | MIA | MIN
NE | NO | NYG | NYJ | PHI | PIT | SF
SEA | TB | TEN | WSH
32. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Biggest mistake: Signing Russell Gage to a three-year, $30 million contract (2022)
The Bucs have won a Super Bowl in this time period and are on track to make their fifth straight playoff appearance. As a result, it's hard to find too much fault in what general manager Jason Licht & Co. have done. Some moves have worked better than others, but they have been one of the most successful franchises over the past half-decade.
Tampa's worst move is more a victim of bad circumstance and injury luck than anything else. There's an argument to be made that the team needed to strengthen positions other than wide receiver when it signed Gage in free agency, although Chris Godwin was coming off a torn ACL and there were questions about whether he would be ready to start Week 1. Gage was pegged to be the third wideout on the roster behind Godwin and Mike Evans, but the Bucs were comfortable spending time in 11 personnel, and the move stole a wideout away from the division-rival Falcons.
Gage never found his footing in Tampa Bay. He averaged just 8.4 yards per catch across 13 games before suffering a scary neck injury in the 2023 playoff loss to the Cowboys. He returned for training camp the following season but he tore a patellar tendon in an August practice and missed the remainder of the season. Gage has bounced around practice squads this season without playing, but the Bucs ended up paying $17 million for 426 receiving yards from him.
