5 moves that just make sense

• Kansas City Chiefs need to target a left tackle: After trading away guard Joe Thuney, the Chiefs could very well try to sign the best available left tackle on the market to fill the biggest hole on the team.
• The Arizona Cardinals would be wise to shore up a weakness: Head coach Jonathan Gannon getting to work together with one of his former players could exponentially improve Arizona’s pass rush, which was a weakness last season.
• 2025 NFL Draft season is here: Try PFF’s best-in-class Mock Draft Simulator and learn about 2025’s top prospects while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

While there are always some surprising free-agent signings, there are also plenty that just make too much sense not to happen.

We highlighted five of the latter that we think would serve the players and the teams well.

OT Ronnie Stanley: Kansas City Chiefs

It has been well documented how poorly Kansas City’s left tackles fared during the 2024 season, as they allowed a pressure on 11.3% of pass plays, the NFL’s worst rate. They also combined to earn a 50.0 PFF pass-blocking grade, the league’s lowest. It forced the Chiefs to play guard Joe Thuney at left tackle in the second half of the season; however, since they traded Thuney to the Chicago Bears, that is not an option anymore, and they need to fix the left tackle position.

Meanwhile, Stanley had his best season since 2020, as he earned a 70.7 PFF overall grade. However, Stanley’s 80.9 PFF pass-blocking grade ranked 16^th among offensive tackles, as he surrendered a pressure on just 6.7% of his team’s pass plays.

C Drew Dalman: Chicago Bears

New head coach Ben Johnson did not waste any time improving Chicago’s offensive line in an effort to help quarterback Caleb Williams’s development in his second season in the league. The Bears have already added guards Jonah Jackson and Joe Thuney via trades, and there is a good chance they will not stop at those moves. Center Coleman Shelton signed just a one-year deal with the Bears last season, so Chicago does not really have a starting center on its roster at this point.

Dalman has become one of the best centers in the NFL over his time with the Falcons, as he ranked in the top five in PFF overall grade in each of the last two seasons. Even though his main strength is more in the run game, Dalman could immediately make Chicago’s interior trio one of the better interior offensive lines in the entire NFL.

WR Amari Cooper: Los Angeles Chargers

Even though last year’s second-round pick Ladd McConkey has been everything the Chargers could have hoped for and even more, Los Angeles still desperately needs wide receivers, which was very evident in the Chargers’ lone playoff game. Of Los Angeles’s 242 receiving yards, 197 were recorded by the rookie, which was in line with what we have seen from the Chargers offense during the regular season.

Even though there is no elite wide receiver option on the free agent market following the Cincinnati Bengals franchise tagging Tee Higgins, Cooper could be a reliable target and No. 2 wide receiver in the Chargers offense. While the veteran wide receiver could not really carve out a role for himself in Buffalo after he joined the Bills midseason, having a full offseason in the Chargers offense could enable him to still contribute in 2025.

CB Charvarius Ward: Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Ward played as well as any other cornerback in the NFL in his first two seasons with the San Francisco 49ers, as he earned an 89.1 PFF overall grade over the 2022 and 2023 seasons, which ranked behind only Sauce Gardner. In addition, his 2,163 snaps over this period also ranked fourth in the NFL. While Ward could not replicate this form and durability in 2024, that is largely – if not fully – due to an off-field tragedy. There is no reason to think that Ward, who will still be only 29 years old at the start of the season, cannot get back to his old form in the next couple seasons and become once again one of the best cornerbacks in the league.

The cornerback position has been a need for the Buccaneers even without the expected cut of Jamel Dean, and Ward’s style works well with Todd Bowles’s aggressive defense.

DI Milton Williams: Arizona Cardinals

Arizona’s defense generated a pressure on just 30.9 percent of pass plays in 2024, which ranked only 27^th in the NFL. Furthermore, their interior defenders combined to earn a 54.3 PFF pass-rushing grade, which ranked 28^th in the league. The Cardinals desperately need to upgrade their pass rush, both outside and on the interior. While Milton Williams might not be a complete interior defender due to some struggles against the run, he more than makes up for it with his pass-rushing production. In fact, his 91.7 PFF pass-rushing grade in 2024 led all interior defenders in the NFL. His connection to Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon – who used to be Philadelphia’s defensive coordinator – just makes this an even better fit for Williams.