The Most Intriguing NFL Free Agents on the Market in 2022 Offseason

It's a gamble when it comes to NFL free agency. Teams are willing to give up valuable cap dollars to land players with proven and sustained production, but they are also willing to bet big on those with potential or upside.

These bets do not always pay immediate dividends. Bud Dupree, a pass-rusher for the TennesseeTitans, signed a five-year, $82.5 million contract last year. Dupree had three sacks in 11 games.

Sometimes they do. The Cincinnati Bengals made a $60 million bet on a pass-rusher who had just one year of double-digit sack production. He made the Pro Bowl with 14 sacks.

The risk-reward nature of free agency is what keeps it at the forefront of the NFL offseason, and things will be no different when the market opens on March 16.

We know what players like Davante Adams, Terron Armstead and J.C. Jackson can do. Who are the players who are coming out of bad situations? Things get interesting there.

There are eight intriguing players who are far from sure but who will garner their fair share of headlines heading into the open market.

The players are listed in chronological order.

Jadeveon Clowney has been one of the more intriguing free-agent options in recent years. Clowney has never recorded a double-digit-sack season, but he has been better at defending the run than pass-rushing.

Clowney has missed 32 games in eight years due to injuries. He only played in 21 games in the two years.

Clowney had a rebound season with the Cleveland Browns. He had nine sacks and 32 quarterback pressures. He is once again an intriguing option as he heads back to the open market.

Clowney can stay healthy for the majority of the year. Is his production the result of playing opposite an All-Pro? Will the 29-year-old demand a long-term commitment after taking a one-year, $8 million deal this past season?

The uncertainty surrounding Clowney is only made worse by these questions. His physical talent has never been in question, and some team is going to bet on that in a matter of weeks.

For a couple of reasons, Chris Godwin is the most intriguing receiver headed to market.

The 25-year-old appears to have the potential to be a top receiver. Though he missed two games with a leg injury, he still finished with 1,333 receiving yards and nine touchdown.

When targeting that season, Godwin provided a quarterback rating of 114.8.

He is coming off a tornACL that he suffered in late December, but he is still viewed as a cornerstone by the Buccaneers. There is no guarantee that he will be available early in 2022, or that he will be 100 percent at any point in the season.

It is fair to wonder how good of a top target Mike Evans can be without him. When running mates are no longer part of the equation, productive receivers like JuJu Smith-Schuster fall off significantly.

If he can stay healthy, there should be little doubt that he can be a valuable receiver for a new team. How valuable can he be next season? There is intrigue.

Von Miller missed the entire 2020 season due to ankle surgery. He was traded to the Los Angeles Rams in the middle of the season. He went on to win his second Super Bowl.

Both the Broncos and the Rams had Miller perform well. He had 9.5 sacks and 30 quarterback pressures during the regular season. He had four sacks in the playoffs and two in the Super Bowl.

Miller is almost 33 years old, so there is no way he can keep producing at a high level. Right?

Miller may still have plenty left in the tank, and the year off may have helped rejuvenated the future Hall of Famer. Some aging defenders fade down the stretch, but Miller did not. As his time with the Rams went on, he got better.

Miller's age will still be a question mark for some teams, and he is probably best suited for a franchise with an open championship window. According to Ian Rapoport, Miller plans to explore free agency.

Miller is going to be an interesting journey to follow after this, as it will be his first time in free agency.

The 2022, tight end pool should be a good one, with seasoned vet Ertz and productive young players like Gesicki and Shultz hitting the market. David Njoku is more of a mystery than a proven commodity.

The first-round pick has had limited success in Cleveland. He had his best season so far in 2018, when he caught 56 passes for 639 yards and four touchdown. He hauled in seven passes for 149 yards and a touchdown in Week 5 of the season.

In one of his five pro seasons, Njoku has topped 500 receiving yards.

The intrigue surrounding the 25-year-old is more than just his potential. Over the past two seasons, he has been part of a run-heavy Cleveland offense while sharing reps with other tight ends.

There is no way to know how productive Njoku might be in a pass-first offense. The baseline example is that of the 2018 campaign, but it is worth pointing out that Baker Mayfield was a rookies that year.

The biggest boom or bust option in a loaded tight end market is Njoku.

One of the most fascinating players of the season was Cordarrelle Patterson.

The four-time first-team All-Pro return specialist had rarely held a significant offensive role before he joined the Atlanta Falcons. There, he reinvented himself as a receiver and runner.

Arthur Blank, the owner of the team, said that this is a very talented player, a very talented athlete, and that it is a good example of when a coach understands the scheme.

He had 618 rushing yards, 548 receiving yards and 11 combined touchdown. I wonder if the soon-to-be-31-year-old can replicate that success away from Smith and the Falcons.

A repeat performance of 2021 would depend on the willingness of the team to use Patterson as an all-around weapon.

It would be dependent on Patterson avoiding the wall. Thirty-one is old for a running back, even one with relatively few carries. In the last five games of the season, Patterson averaged less than four yards per carry.

In the year 2021, he flashed enough as a versatile runner/receiver/returner that he remains a very intriguing option.

It took nearly four years for the Seattle Seahawks running back to get to where he is now. Through three years, the first-round pick had just 823 rushing yards despite being hampered by injuries.

The league's best running back down the stretch was Penny, who took full advantage of his opportunity late last season. He finished the year with 749 rushing yards in just 10 games with a league-leading 6.3 yards per carry, and 671 of those yards came over the final five weeks.

In four of those five games, Seattle faced teams with subpar run defenses. Against the Rams,Penny ran for 39 yards and 3.6 yards per carry.

Penny will be one of the bigger players in the running back pool because of his impressive stretch. He has never before had the chance to be a great runner over a long period.

At 26 years old,Penny may only be entering his playing prime and fully capable of being a franchise back. There is a chance that his eye-opening stretch run was a mistake. A team is going to have to pay to find out.

Robinson II had a down year in the year 2021, with 38 catches, 410 yards and a single touchdown. There are reasons to believe that his decline was a result of circumstance.

Robinson had back-to-back seasons of at least 1,100 receiving yards. He entered amid a strained relationship with Matt Nagy.

Robinson said that things like that coming into the season were a little unnerving because he was his guy since he arrived in Chicago.

Robinson was hampered by a bout with COVID-19 and with poor overall quarterback play. Robinson didn't get stellar quarterback play in the two years that he did, but he still produced.

Can Robinson return to being a top receiver? Teams will be asking that question as March 16 nears.

We don't know if Robinson can revive his career, and we won't know until he takes the field in a new situation this fall.

Jameis Winston is the most intriguing option in this year's free-agent quarterback pool. We don't know what he can do as a signal-caller despite the fact that he has started 77 games in the NFL.

The big-play ability of the man was overshadowed by his penchant for avoidable mistakes. He was a Pro Bowler in 2015, and led the league with 5,109 passing yards in 2019. He had a league-high 30 picks in his five years with the Buccaneers.

As a starter in the New Orleans Saints, Winston was more careful with the football. He threw 14 touchdown passes and only three turnovers. His season was cut short by a torn knee.

His recovery adds more to the puzzle.

At 28 years old, he is still young enough to be a franchise quarterback. He might be exactly that if he can get back to 100 percent and combine the downfield power from his days in the Florida sunshine with the ball security we saw in New Orleans. There is no guarantee that he can.

The best passer rating of his career was a sign of progress, but was it the product of a carefully constructed game plan by former Saints coach Sean Payton? Will he return to his mistake-prone ways in a different system? These are some of the biggest questions quarterback-needy teams will be asking as they ponder whether or not to pick up the phone and call Jameis.

Spotrac has cap and contract information. The Pro Football Reference has advanced statistics.