{"id":3846,"date":"2013-05-31T09:45:38","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T13:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/?p=3846"},"modified":"2013-05-31T09:45:38","modified_gmt":"2013-05-31T13:45:38","slug":"dwight-freeney-blames-collusion-for-lack-of-free-agent-bucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/2013\/05\/31\/dwight-freeney-blames-collusion-for-lack-of-free-agent-bucks\/","title":{"rendered":"Dwight Freeney blames collusion for lack of free agent bucks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"dwightfreeney\"
credit: getty images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dwight Freeney had a great stint in Indianapolis. The 11-year player ended his time there with 107.5 sacks. When the Colts did not offer him a contract this year he expected he would find one quickly via free agency.<\/p>\n

Freeney’s assumption was wrong.<\/p>\n

“I basically think the owners got together and decided not to spend the cash on free agents,” Freeney said in an interview with CBSSports<\/a>. “I definitely think that’s part of it. I think the owners made a pact. There’s only 32 of them and none of them broke ranks. I think they all decided not to spend money.”<\/p>\n

The NFL has denied any wrong doing and it should be noted that Freeney expected nothing more then a small offer<\/a> from the Colts prior to his release.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be honest with you, I was surprised the way it happened,\u201d Freeney told the Indianapolis Star after his release. \u201cI figured they would offer me something low and I would just accept it, go the last few years and retire a Colt and that would be it.”<\/p>\n

There were some free agents who made a splash such as Mike Williams deal worth $60 million over five years, with $27 of that being guaranteed.<\/p>\n

The free agent class was widely disappointing this year. As for Freeney’s he was coming off the worst year of his NFL career after the Colts changed their defense prior to the start of the 2012 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dwight Freeney had a great stint in Indianapolis. The 11-year player ended his time there with 107.5 sacks. When the Colts did not offer him a contract this year he expected he would find one quickly via free agency. Freeney’s assumption was wrong. “I basically think the owners got together and decided not to spend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[],"coauthors":[4],"class_list":{"0":"post-3846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3846"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}