NFC South Free Agency Quantified

Many of you know that I like things I can quantify. Numbers make me comfortable; much moreso than words or feelings or other people. With that in mind, I broke down the free agency movement in the NFC South to its basic components of players lost and gained and tried to determine who won free agency so far. There's a lot more to it than this, but at least I got to create a table.

NFC South Free Agency
	ATL	CAR	NO	TB
To Other Teams	5	9	2	3
Still Unsigned	12	9	6	8
Re-signed	3	6	9	4
From Other Teams	8	7	5	10
Net Gain/Loss	-9	-11	-3	-1

Ok, so, what have we learned? Team by team...

1. Atlanta is going for the complete purge. They allowed 20 players to walk and only re-signed 3 of them. 12 are still out there after 3 weeks of free agency and they brought in 8 from other teams with only one real big splash (Michael Turner). They really would appreciate it if the 2007 season could be purged from their memories and the record books.
2. Carolina gave 24 players the chance to leave and re-signed 6. Only 9 are still unsigned, so they actually lost a lot of players that other teams wanted, which might be a bad sign. The only outside guys that made any noise were Muhsin Muhammad, D.J. Hackett and possibly LaBrandon Toefield. This looks like a team that is trying to avoid cap problems.
3. The Saints only lost two players to other teams (both Buccaneers... hee hee) and re-signed 9 of their own guys. They only brought in 5 players from other teams, Randall Gay being the biggest name. They still have 6 players unsigned, but they all have 10+ years behind them. This is clearly a team that feels they are only one or two players away from going deep into the playoffs.
4. Tampa Bay put 15 players out without contracts and only 3 have been snatched up by other teams so far (2 of them to Detroit, natch). 4 others have been re-signed and 8 are still floating around. Then they brought in 10 players from other teams because that's just the way they roll. The Bucs like their players, but they don't "like like" (spoken like a 9th grade girl) them and are totally willing to let them walk and pick someone else up. Don't cry, baby. It's not you, it's them. They're just not ready for the 3-5 year commitment you're looking for. But if you just want to, you know, hang out for a year on the cheap, they're cool with that. No biggie.

So, if you're just going by free agency, Atlanta and Carolina look like they're doing some rebuilding and won't be all that competitive in 2008. The Saints are holding firm with what they had last year and are going to lean on their coaches to make the improvements and are the most likely to give the Bucs a challenge for the division. And the Bucs are bringing in shitloads of players to camp and letting them duke it out for depth while retaining most of their starters. It will be interesting to see which strategy panned out in December.