John Clayton's take on targeting restricted free agents this year, including Brandon Lloyd, Kevin Curtis and Nate Burleson:
8. Restricted area: The restricted market should be dead. With a number of teams entering free agency with more than $10 million of cap room, what team is going to be crazy enough to waste seven days to sign a restricted free agent if it thinks the other team is going to match? Teams normally stay away from the dozen or so restricted free agents with first-round tenders. This year, it's probably a waste of time to give a tender to a restricted free agent for low draft choice compensation. The teams that have the seven days to match will just thank the other teams for tendering a long-term deal and eat up some of their own cap room. Still, a few names such as kicker
Josh Brown of the Seahawks,
Nate Burleson of the Vikings and
Ricky Manning Jr. of the Panthers might draw interest.