Which 2024 NFL Offseason Moves Will Look the Worst In 3 Years?

The bulk of major 2024 NFL offseason transactions are now in the rearview. While it may be a bit early to predict the long-term ramifications from some of these bigger, landscape-shifting decisions, it certainly won’t stop us from trying.

There are several moves that stick out for their potential to harm a franchise far more than they will help. Situations like a team investing too much money in a free agent, trading away a key player to a rival or hiring an inexperienced head coach already seem questionable now and could ultimately cost the club dearly in the coming years.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at some of these iffy maneuvers and highlight why they’ll be regrettable within the next three seasons.

The Atlanta Falcons made one of the biggest head-scratching decisions of not only the 2024 offseason, but of all time by drafting Michael Penix Jr. at No. 8 overall just weeks after coming to terms on a blockbuster contract with Kirk Cousins.

The Penix choice was controversial enough in a vacuum, as the Falcons severely reached for a 24-year-old signal-caller riddled with red flags and injury concerns at No. 8 overall.

During a four-year stint at Indiana, Penix appeared in just 21 total games due to a pair of torn ACLs and had middling statistics when he was healthy. While he stayed on the field and was highly productive at Washington, he still only rated as the No. 87 overall prospect on the Bleacher Report Scouting Department’s big board and his 6.9 prospect grade more in line with a Day 3 selection than a top-10 pick.

Even if Penix does stay healthy and can translate his game to the pros, he may not get a chance to display prove himself on Sundays until he’s nearly 30 years old.

With Cousins inking a massive four-year, $180 million contract—$100 million of which is guaranteed—the Falcons already had their quarterback issues ironed out and paid a king’s ransom for that privilege. There’s now a chance for an unnecessary quarterback controversy and rift in relationships that could set the organization back considerably.

According to The Athletic’s Dianna Russini, Cousins didn’t receive a heads up regarding the Penix pick until Atlanta was on the clock. The veteran was understandably confused and concerned about the selection, a valid reaction given Penix won’t help Atlanta win for the foreseeable future and directly cost the team a chance to add high-end prospects at other more critical positions.

While there’s a chance that Penix steps into the starting role early due to a Cousins injury or regression, that outcome seems unlikely. There’s a better chance he rides the pine for the duration of his current contract before placing Atlanta in the unenviable situation of having to make a pricy fifth-year option decision without seeing him in any meaningful action.

It’s an awful spot for the club to potentially find itself in, one that could have been avoided entirely by just going a different direction during the draft.

The Buffalo Bills’ offseason hasn’t gone the way fans might have hoped. After underwhelming in the playoffs yet again, the team failed to bring in the type of marquee free agents and draft picks needed to get over the hump.

Perhaps more concerningly, the Bills even helped multiple AFC rivals improve their rosters via a series of trades.

One of the most glaring missteps was trading away Stefon Diggs. For just a 2025 second-rounder in return, the Houston Texans received a top wideout coming off four consecutive Pro Bowl appearances. Buffalo even had to give up a fifth- and sixth-round selections to facilitate the deal.

While Diggs did display signs of decline in the back half of 2023 and has struggled in certain playoff games, he still breeched the 1,000-yard receiving mark for the sixth consecutive year. Diggs tallied eight touchdowns as well, totaling an impressive 37 scores across the four seasons he spent in western New York.

The 30-year-old will likely add an edge to the Texans’ already deep receiving corps and could come back to haunt his former team in the playoffs.

It was obvious that the Bills would need to draft Diggs’ replacement after failing to land any elite receivers in free agency, but the method in which Buffalo’s brass went about this was also rather questionable.

Not only did the Bills pass up the opportunity to draft a blue-chip prospect on Day 1, but they also traded down from No. 28 overall with the Kansas City Chiefs and allowed the back-to-back Super Bowl champs to secure Xavier Worthy.

While the Bills did get a rookie wideout of their own in Keon Coleman on Day 2, it would hardly be a shock if Worthy—who set the scouting combine record with a blistering 4.21-second 40-yard dash—is one of the top first-year pass-catchers of 2024.

Worthy’s game-breaking speed and playmaking abilities could even be a reason why Kansas City eliminates Buffalo from Super Bowl contention for the fourth time in the last half-decade, an outcome that would cement this as one of the offseason’s most disastrous decisions.

The Carolina Panthers are set for yet another reboot in 2024 under new head coach Dave Canales, who will have his work cut out trying to right the ship and become the first Panthers head coach to oversee a winning campaign since Ron Rivera in 2017.

Canales’ most important task will be rehabilitating the career of Bryce Young. Young is coming off one of the more abysmal rookie performances in recent history, going 2-14 in his starts while completing just 59.8 percent of his throws for 2,877 yards and 11 touchdowns while being intercepted 11 times and taking a whopping 62 sacks.

The Panthers have no choice but to remain committed to Young after the franchise not only invested a No. 1 overall pick into the signal-caller, but also mortgaged the future to trade up into that spot. The package they sent the Chicago Bears to move up from No. 9 overall last year notably included a 2024 first-rounder that wound up becoming another No. 1 overall selection.

Despite this hefty investment, the Panthers took a massive risk in hiring a relatively unproven coaching candidate. Canales spent just one season as an offensive coordinator before accepting his current role and his year overseeing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense wasn’t anything special. Tampa ranked just 23rd in total offense and 20th in scoring under Canales in 2023..

While Canales is from the Pete Carroll coaching tree and worked as both a quarterback’s coach and passing game coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks during some of Russell Wilson’s finest years, he’s going to have an uphill battle installing a system and calling plays for a Panthers squad that ranked dead-last in passing offense, total offense and scoring last year.

It certainly doesn’t help that Carolina also committed several regrettable offseason blunders such as vastly overpaying for an average guard in Robert Hunt and cheaply trading away top pass-rusher Brian Burns, but the decision to hire Canales could be the worst of the bunch.

If Canales fails to develop into a great head coach, Carolina’s next few seasons and Young’s career could be lost.

The Texans may have financial flexibility for the next few seasons thanks to C.J. Stroud’s rookie scale contract, but they’ve already squandered some of it by offering Nico Collins a three-year, $72.75 million extension.

Collins had been disappointing during his first two NFL campaigns before finally breaking out in his third season with Stroud under center. While he had a red-hot start to 2023 that saw him rack up 428 yards and three scores on 22 receptions over the first four weeks, Collins noticeably started to take a step back following the emergence of rookie wideout Tank Dell.

After cooling down between Weeks 5 and 9—a stretch in which Collins had a relatively pedestrian 203 receiving yards and one touchdown on 14 catches—the wideout experienced another resurgence in wake of Dell’s season-ending injury. Collins benefitted heavily from being the top option in Houston’s potent aerial attack and finished the year with 1,297 yards and eight touchdowns on 150 receptions, but the 25-year-old will struggle to keep pace going forward.

Dell is slated to make a full recovery and will command a healthy share of the targets. The receiver’s room also welcomed a perennial Pro Bowler in Stefon Diggs, who projects to be the main option for Stroud while he remains on the roster. Diggs has drawn at least 150 targets in each of his last four seasons and will likely continue to see heavy volume during his stint in Houston.

Collins looks to be the odd man out here, especially with Dalton Schultz—the tight end who ranked No. 2 on the team in both receptions and targets last year—remaining in the mix and Joe Mixon, a respectable receiving back, joining it as well.

While Collins clearly warranted some sort of extension for his efforts in 2023, the Texans overpaid considering the chances of last season’s production looking like an outlier three years from now. With Collins under contract through the 2027 campaign with rather sizable cap hits in the final two seasons, this will be a regrettable move that could play a key role in shutting the team’s Super Bowl window.

The Jacksonville Jaguars had a puzzling series of offseason moves, none of which were more harmful to the franchise than its failure to retain wideout Calvin Ridley.

Ridley had a strong debut campaign in Jacksonville, returning from an extended hiatus—he left the Atlanta Falcons for personal reasons early in the 2021 season and was suspended for gambling-related reasons for all of 2022—to put up 1,016 yards and eight touchdowns on 76 receptions.

Despite Ridley’s production and desire to remain in Duval county, the Jaguars didn’t make a strong enough financial offer to retain the 29-year-old wideout. He wound up accepting a four-year, $92 million deal from the Tennessee Titans, a move that both bolstered an AFC South rival and squandered more of rising star Trevor Lawrence’s prime.

While Lawrence has been steadily emerging as one of the NFL’s best young quarterbacks since entering the league as a No. 1 overall pick in 2021, he did take a slight step back this past season.

A big reason for Lawrence’s regression was a lack of weapons surrounding him. Without Ridley remaining in the picture, it will be even tougher for Lawrence and the Jags to take a leap in 2024 following back-to-back 9-8 seasons.

Jacksonville did attempt to find a replacement for Ridley on the open market but only came away with polarizing playmaker Gabe Davis. Although Davis has racked up 27 touchdowns over his first four NFL seasons, he’s been a boom-or-bust contributor who hasn’t gone over 836 yards or 48 catches in any individual campaign.

It’s now hard to see a clear path for Jacksonville’s offense improving this year, especially if Brian Thomas Jr. doesn’t live up to the hype. The Jaguars have notably struggled to develop wideouts in-house recently and could be set further back if their first-round draft choice fails to reach his ceiling.

With Lawrence now eligible and likely to soon receive an extension that will probably ring up north of $50 million per year, Jacksonville’s inability to capitalize on the quarterback’s budget rookie contract will be remembered as a grave misstep.