The value in the deals is irrelevant.  You spend what you have to spend.  The Jags had the luxury of having a ton of cap space to work with, knowing that they'd have to spend a good portion of that to work towards being compliant with the league rules around spending to the 89% mark.  So, spending a little more than the fans would prefer to get free agents early in the process means very little.  It is what it is, and the team has to spend that money.

 

To the OPs point about not getting Suh, McCourty, or Cobb, 2 of the 3 were never an option, so it's easy to let them go.  As for Suh, based on what Miami paid to get him, we're better off.  Yes, Suh is a dominant player, but is that much more dominant than what we currently have on the roster that he's worth that much more money?  I don't think so.  DT was not a major issue for this team coming into free agency.  I think the team set a price point for him, and they weren't going to deviate from that.  In the end Miami gave up a ton of guaranteed money in order to secure his services.  That's fine.  We'll be fine. 

 

I think it's a little premature to declare the dust settled.  I don't think we're anywhere close to being done with free agency.  The initial first wave has passed, but there will be plenty of other options for this team to explore, and if there are upgrades to be had, I have no doubt Dave and Co will pursue them. 

 

In the end, what Marty said above is accurate.  The good teams draft well.  They don't build through free agency.  They supplement.  To the extent that this team has utilized free agency, I'd say that's the approach they're taking.  We had a lot of lousy drafts to overcome, and they're being very methodical in their approach to rebuilding this roster.  They're not going out and just throwing money around wrecklessly.  The acquisitions they're making help this team get better while continuing to build through the draft.  I believe that over time, this now very young roster will start to develop the kind of successful players that will see us eating up more of our cap space on retaining talent than acquring new guys.  It will even (hopefully) get to the point where we're having to let some of that talent walk because we've drafted equally effective players to replace the more expensive vets.  That's really how the good teams maintain.  It all comes down to drafting well, and while this team historically hasn't done such a great job, I think we're seeing that change over the past couple of years, and there's no reason to think it won't continue.

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