No offense intended on this, but it's way too early to know how much of an accomplishment it might be, IMO. The Dolphins still suck. The Jets still suck. The Bills still have Allen at QB. The Patriots still have the best team in the division. None of that has changed since Saturday.
The rest is all still to develop. And a look at the FA list shows that the potential problem there, outside of Brady, is largely being overblown. If you consider Collins to be gone, it's going to be about
Brady
Thuney
Van Noy
as the bigger ticket players, and then the likes of
Roberts
Slater
Karras
Folk
Shelton
Ebner
Bethel
should mostly be easy re-signings.
- Dorsett is probably gone, given the "I'm done" and very light subsequent snap counts. If he stays, it's going to be for small money.
- Watson's off to retirement
- Newhouse is almost certainly either gone or just a low priority swing tackle contract
- Butler's an RFA, so he can be tendered
- Davis is an RFA, so he too can be tendered
- Eluemunor is another RFA who can be kept, or not
- Ferentz is probably gone
- Calhoun isn't likely to cost anything to retain
McCourty could be interesting, because that's going to be about the perception of where his game's at. The others are players who will likely be looked at as either lower priorities or guys to move on from. But I don't see anything particularly difficult about this overall group, though the potential loss of 2 starting LBs might make some people nervous.
Finding the right FAs to sign as opposed to keeping the team's own FAs is where the issue's probably going to be, but that's been par for the course around here for a while now.