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10 players who will be wildly overpaid in 2023 NFL Free Agency

By Sayre Bedinger

NFL Free Agency: Daniel Jones #8 of the New York Giants looks to pass against the Philadelphia Eagles during the third quarter in the NFC Divisional Playoff game at Lincoln Financial Field on January 21, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
NFL Free Agency: Daniel Jones #8 of the New York Giants looks to pass against the Philadelphia Eagles during the third quarter in the NFC Divisional Playoff game at Lincoln Financial Field on January 21, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images) /
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Every year, NFL Free Agency offers fans for many teams the opportunity to be optimistic. If your team is active in free agency and you can win in March, putting a better team down on paper, maybe things will be different come time for the regular season to begin. Unfortunately, a lot of decisions get made during NFL Free Agency that general managers and executives around the league live to regret.

Especially when the market dictates a player gets paid more than his production — to this point — is really worth, you get into some dangerous risk-reward territory. It’s impossible to truly know whether a free agent is getting overpaid until we see the proof of what they can do on the field at their next destination, but let’s try to predict the 10 NFL free agents in 2023 who will be overpaid in this current market.

10 players who will be overpaid in 2023 NFL Free Agency

NFL Free Agency
NFL Free Agency: Mecole Hardman #17 of the Kansas City Chiefs celebrates with JuJu Smith-Schuster #9 of the Kansas City Chiefs after a third quarter touchdown catch by Hardman against the Buffalo Bills at Arrowhead Stadium on October 16, 2022 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images) /

10. Chiefs WRs JuJu Smith-Schuster, Mecole Hardman

With the amount of team success the Kansas City Chiefs have had over the last six years, they have become a brand name in the NFL that teams want to emulate as much as they possibly can. Whether you’re talking about having so much speed offensively or finding a quarterback that can work in and out of structure as well as Patrick Mahomes, every NFL team would love to have a piece of what the Kansas City Chiefs have.

It just so happens that you can have a couple of pieces of their offensive weaponry in 2023 NFL free agency.

These two pieces in particular are wide receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster and Mecole Hardman. Spotrac.com has calculated Smith-Schuster’s annual market value at $14.6 million per year and Hardman’s annual market value at $10.3 million per year. No matter what way you slice it, you’re probably looking at these guys being two of the most overpaid players in NFL free agency, for a couple of reasons.

1. They are coming from Kansas City
2. This year’s wide receiver market is extremely thin

NFL teams should remember how ice cold they were on JuJu Smith-Schuster in last year’s free agency before he signed a very modest deal in Kansas City. With Mecole Hardman, questions should be asked about why he wasn’t able to step into a bigger role despite plenty of opportunities to do so. He was also only on the field for eight games this past season.

There are big-time Curtis Samuel vibes there from Hardman, although he might be a worthwhile dart throw for some teams.

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