The new league year started with a bang as teams completed an unprecedented number of player trades on top of the usual splashy Day 1 signings.  While the Miami Dolphins landed the big fish in Ndamukong Suh, there were a few teams that spent their dollars a little more wisely, and some teams that stumbled through the door on the NFL’s New Year’s Day the way many of us do on January 1^st.

The Early Winners

New York Jets

Typically signing Darrelle Revis should be a win now move, and it’s unlikely that Ryan Fitzpatrick, Geno Smith or a rookie quarterback is going to lead the Jets to a Super Bowl in the next couple seasons. However, for some reason it doesn’t seem as absurd for the Jets to bring Revis home, as it would for some other teams in their position to drop that much coin on the veteran corner. The Jets defense was a secondary away from being dominant, and the additions of Revis and Buster Skrine will transform the Jets secondary immediately.

Re-signing inside linebacker David Harris was another important under the radar move for the Jets defense. In the opening days of the 2015 league year, the Jets have added one of the two or three best defensive players in the game, and spent a 5^th round draft pick on a guy who will be the best offensive player on the team in Brandon Marshall. The Jets also signed Seattle Seahawks guard James Carpenter to sure up the offensive line.

Arizona Cardinals

The Arizona Cardinals aren’t making too many splashy signings, but once again general manager Steve Keim is quietly doing one of the best jobs in the league. Arizona isn’t blessed with a ton of cap space, but Keim is showing he knows how to spend the limited space he has to work with to once again improve the Cardinals heading into 2015. Keim and the Cardinals started the spending by landing the best offensive lineman on the open market in San Francisco 49ers guard Mike Iupati. With the signing of Iupati this year, and underrated left tackle Jared Veldheer a year ago, Keim has left the Cardinals with one of the best left sides of an offensive line in football.

The Cardinals also added defensive tackle Corey Peters, and linebackers Sean Weatherspoon and Lamar Woodley. While the signings of Peters, Weatherspoon and Woodley aren’t splashy, they are brilliant. Arizona’s defense is good enough that none of these guys need to come in and be stars. Woodley is 30 now, but as a situational guy he can make plays on this defense where he’ll be surrounded by good players. If Peters and Weatherspoon can return to form and stay healthy, they’ll add a ton to this defense, but if they can’t, it won’t be a disaster. Their entire season will likely once again hinge on Carson Palmer’s health, but when you look at how they’re doing things in Arizona, it’s pretty clear the Cardinals are becoming one of the better organizations in football.

Green Bay Packers

There’s not a lot to say about what the Green Bay Packers have done to start the new league year, because they haven’t done a lot. However, speculation heading into the free agent negotiating period was that both tackle Bryan Bulaga, and wide receiver Randall Cobb would be bolting for bigger pay days. What makes the Packers winners in the early days of the league year is that neither of them did bolt, and it’s likely they both left money on the table to remain in Green Bay with Aaron Rodgers. It has to be Rodgers, right? Clearly Cobb and Bulaga believe their best chance to win another championship and to be happier in their careers is alongside the league’s MVP. That sends a message to other free agents, and to the rest of the league. For a team like the Packers to be able to convince their star players to stick around for less money, that makes them a major winner.

The Early Losers

Philadelphia Eagles

When we said that Chip Kelly better have a good plan, we never imagined that this might be what he had in mind. The Eagles started the rebuild by moving on from their starting quarterback, tailback and top receiver, and by replacing them all with some enormous question marks. It would be a little silly, and even unfair to suggest that Kelly doesn’t know what kind of players would fit best into his system, but for Chip to bet on so many guys with injury histories seems, well, crazy.

Sam Bradford seems like a great young man, and there’s no question that he was talented enough to be selected first overall in the 2010 draft, but some questioned whether or not the quarterback could stay healthy in the NFL after he dealt with injury issues in college. The answer for Bradford has been no. Bradford missed six games in 2011, nine games in 2013 and the entire 2014 season after an ACL tear. Kiko Alonso was a great linebacker in his rookie season, and probably should have won Defensive Rookie of the Year, but like Bradford, he’s coming off on an ACL injury himself. He’s a young player, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him bounce back, but in a year that’s very important for Kelly, he might not be at his best.

The signings of Ryan Mathews and Byron Maxwell are puzzling too. Maxwell and Walter Thurmond, III are good additions to the secondary, but if you compare Maxwell’s contract to those just signed by Brandon Flowers and Kareem Jackson, you wonder why Philadelphia overpaid Maxwell by so much. In Mathews, the Eagles are once again banking on a player who hasn’t had a history of staying on the football field. You almost expect a collision in the backfield between Bradford and Mathews that results in season ending injuries for both of them. It’s really hard to understand where Kelly is going with these additions, and in the end, he still hasn’t replaced Maclin. Chip Kelly certainly feels like the Eagles have improved in the last few days, I’m not sure anyone else agrees.

*Update: The Philadelphia Eagles have signed DeMarco Murray and still sign Ryan Mathews. As often as each of them has missed games, it’s probably good for Philadelphia to have some depth.

San Francisco 49ers

Somewhere between recruiting and coaching first base, you just know that Jim Harbaugh has enjoyed watching what’s going down in San Francisco. Suddenly the Niners are a shell of the team that went to three consecutive AFC title games. The 49ers’ roster is suffering so many losses, that people have barely noticed the addition of wide receiver Torrey Smith, who gives San Francisco the deep threat they’ve been lacking offensively. As nice as the addition of Smith is, it’s hard to imagine this team being better in 2015. The 49ers also added a very motivated Darnell Dockett to its defensive line, but the defense lost an all-time great this week when Patrick Willis announced his retirement. The bad news continues on the defense, as it sounds like Justin Smith is leaning toward following Willis into retirement, although he hasn’t actually made it official just yet.

The team also lost starting left guard Mike Iupati who was key to their power running game. Kind of like Frank Gore, right?  It was strange to see the way things went down with Gore. One day the 49ers are basically announcing that one way or another they’ll re-sign Gore, and the next we’re hearing Gore is talking about Philadelphia. San Francisco’s quasi announcement that they’d re-sign Gore felt like they were saying we’ll get to that after we handle more important things. One has to wonder if that’s why Gore seemed ready to take his talents elsewhere.  Let’s not forget this is an organization that was a mess when Harbaugh got to town, and now there’s some signs that it could be headed that direction once again. Is it possible we all undervalued and underrated Harbaugh because he can be a brash jerk?

At the end of the day, we’re just a few days into this new league year. There’s a ton of good football players left to be signed and a crop of new talent to be drafted. Nobody has won or lost anything yet, but some teams are answering the opening bell better than others.