NFL Free Agency is an opportunity for teams to bolster their roster and for players to find new homes where they can strut their stuff.

The following six players are free agents who could ink a deal with new teams. Here are my bold predictions for their landing spots.

More 2024 NFL Free Agency Coverage

• Top 10 NFL Free Agent Running Backs
• Top 10 NFL Free Agent Wide Receivers
• Top 10 NFL Free Agent Quarterbacks & Tight Ends

6 NFL Free Agency Bold Predictions (2024 Fantasy Football)

Wide Receivers

Tee Higgins | Carolina Panthers

The Bengals can afford to use the franchise tag on Tee Higgins. Will they? That’s not guaranteed. Ja’Marr Chase is the team’s elite No. 1 wide receiver, and Cincinnati picked Charlie Jones and Andrei Iosivas in the 2023 NFL Draft as potential in-house replacements for Higgins and Tyler Boyd. This year’s NFL Draft class of wide receivers is lauded by pundits, awarding the Bengals another path to replace Higgins and Boyd.

Most importantly, the Bengals have more pressing needs, namely shoring up their defense. According to FTN Fantasy, the Bengals were 23rd in defense DVOA. If they invest cap space in the defense instead of Higgins, the young wide receiver will have a robust market.

The Panthers are desperate for help at wide receiver and don’t have a first-round pick in this year’s NFL Draft because they used it to move up to the first pick in last year’s draft to choose Bryce Young. The rookie quarterback had a nightmare first professional campaign, and Carolina’s new head coach and general manager must do everything possible to turn Young’s career around. Adding a big-bodied vertical weapon like Higgins would be a good starting point.

Higgins has stepped up when Chase has missed games. According to 4 For 4 Football’s Market Share Splits App, Higgins has had 8.8 targets per game, a 24.9% target share, 6.2 receptions per game, 102.2 receiving yards per game, 100.0 air yards per game and 0.60 receiving touchdowns per game in five games without Chase since 2022. This is compared to 6.2 targets per game, a 16.9% target share, 3.7 receptions per game, 51.0 receiving yards per game, 72.1 air yards per game and 0.39 receiving touchdowns per game in 23 contests with Chase.

The downgrade from Joe Burrow to Young would be suboptimal for Higgins. Still, the upgrade in volume could offset the quarterback change.

Calvin Ridley | New England Patriots

Calvin Ridley isn’t a No. 1 wide receiver. When asked to be the top pass-catching weapon, he didn’t answer the call for the Falcons or Jaguars. Nevertheless, Ridley can stretch the field and add juice to an offense.

What Ridley brings to the table might not be enough for the Jaguars to sign him to a long-term deal, especially since the third-round pick they owe the Falcons would escalate to a second-round pick if they agree to a long-term pact. The Patriots need to overhaul their offense entirely. They can sign Ridley and spend a premium draft pick, perhaps the third-rounder, to turn the wide receiver position from a liability into a strength.

However, the Patriots could also sign Ridley, draft a quarterback third and add to the wide receiving corps elsewhere in the draft, which would be an ideal scenario for Ridley’s fantasy value if he signed with New England. He scored 11.3 half-point-per-reception (half-PPR) points per game last year, the 25th-most among wide receivers. There’s an influx of talented rookies and ascending youngsters who should bypass Ridley next year, leaving him in the low-end WR3/high-end WR4 mix if he signs with the Patriots.

Tight End

Noah Fant | Cincinnati Bengals

If the Bengals allow Higgins to leave in free agency, they could allocate some of the money they save to sign the athletically gifted Noah Fant as part of a multi-faceted approach to replacing their departed No. 2 wide receiver. He’s cleared 4.0 receptions and 40.0 receiving yards per game twice in his five-year career at a position where players have often taken time to develop.

According to Pro Football Focus (PFF), Fant has had 1.47 Y/RR and 5.7 YAC/REC in his career. Among 33 tight ends targeted at least 40 times in the regular season in 2023, those marks would have ranked tied for 13th and fifth, respectively. Fant is an intriguing late-round tight end, namely if he joins Burrow and the Bengals allow Higgins and Boyd to sign elsewhere.

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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.