3 takeaways after 3 days of free agency

As usual, the first day of free agency included some huge moves. Things have slowed down a little bit, but we've already seen some fascinating trends. Here's 3 big takeaways so far:

1) NFL QBs continue to be the most overpaid position in sports and nothing is going to change that.

Brock Osweiler just got a $72 million dollar deal. If that's not overpaying I don't know what is.

The simple fact is that there's about 15 or so high quality QBs, it's just too tough of a position for all 32 teams to have a competent starter under center, and this fact seems to trump everything else. Never mind that since the Ravens overpaid Flacco they have missed the playoffs twice and gone 1-1 in a stretch with a depleted defense that surrendered 52 points. Never mind that one of the worst performing QBs in 2015 just won the Super Bowl (remember that Manning threw 17 INTs to only 9 TDs in the regular season). Never mind that we still see consistently that defense wins Championships (see the Seahawks in SB 48, the Giants in SB 46 and obviously the Broncos in SB 50).

Despite all of this, QBs are still having money thrown at them all over the place. Heck, it even seems likely that RG3 will START for someone in 2016.

2) The NFC East is still the murkiest division in football.

Honestly, all four of these teams could be top notch contenders or the dregs of the league.

The Eagles have a new head coach in Doug Peterson and seem determined to purge themselves of all of "Chip Kelly's players", immediately moving on from Demarco Murray, Kiko Alonso and Byron Maxwell as soon as they were able to. They could be building towards something or could still be years away from a roster that's fit for anyone but Chip Kelly.

The Giants have been incredibly active in free agency, especially on defense. This bodes well for a team that seems to bottom out regularly and then abruptly turn everything around and win the Super Bowl. That being said, the team has been too inconsistent since 2011 to have much confidence about that.

The Redskins and Cowboys have both been fairly quiet so far. The Cowboys remain a Tony Romo injury away from going 4-12 again, and the Redskins are still...well...the Redskins. Both these teams are total question marks heading into 2016.

3) Free agency has made it almost impossible to repeat as champs

The last team that was able to repeat was the Patriots and it's almost impossible to imagine the Broncos are going to change that this year. Denver's roster has already had some major holes poked in it (seriously, have the Super Bowl champs ever lost TWO QBs?). The same is true for the consistently competitive Seahawks, they're starting to lose players and coaches.

The Elevator Video Shouldn't Matter

The Ray Rice elevator video doesn’t matter one bit. 

Maybe it underscores some larger problems that we as a society need to address, but it shouldn't have changed anything about how Rice was seen.

Don’t get me wrong, he deserves the life time ban.  That should have been his punishment in the first place.

Let’s review the facts. 

The footage of Rice literally dragging his unconscious fiancée out of the Atlantic City elevator surfaces.  He meets with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to explain himself and is then punished with a two game suspension, which Goodell said could be lessened or extended.  This week, the elevator video was released by TMZ, showing the painful details of Rice striking the woman he’s now married to.  As a result, Rice was terminated by the Ravens and indefinitely suspended by the NFL.

Look at the details of what transpired, and you’ll see why the video shouldn't matter.

Rice never lied to the league, media or anyone else about what he did.  He admitted that he struck Janay Palmer on the night in question.  The league and everyone else knew that he knocked her out.  The video of him actually hitting her is sickening to watch, but it’s not surprising.  How else did she wind up unconscious and being dragged out of the elevator?

It doesn't matter if the league saw the elevator video in April or not.  They knew what he did from the beginning and decided to only suspend him two games. 

Look no further than the Saints’ recent bounty gate scandal to see that the league doesn't shy away from handing out stiff punishment when it sees behavior it wants to eradicate. 

The NFL had an opportunity to make a difference and demonstrate that it wasn't going to tolerate domestic violence from players and totally blew it.

Although the video likely changed the average fan’s opinion of Rice, it shouldn't have changed his punishment.  It doesn't show anything the league didn't already know. 

If the NFL really did learn something new from the video, then they were grossly negligent when collecting information about the incident. That's tough to believe consider it’s an organization worth billions.

Scorn Rice all you want, he’s earned it.  There’s no forgiving what he did. 

But rather than just being upset about what he did, let’s try to take the issue of domestic violence more seriously.  It should not have taken a video of what happened in the elevator to make everyone realize how intolerable Rice’s actions were. 

It’s up to us as consumers to hold these organizations accountable. So far the general public has been loudly voicing displeasure with the entire situation and how poorly Rice’s discipline was handled.  Keep it up.