ONE YEAR LATER: Tom Telesco's rough foray into free agency

While we sit here, generally happy with the moves that Tom Telesco has made to improve the San Diego Chargers roster through free agency this offseason, I thought I might go back to a year ago to see how the moves Telesco made last offseason were received.

Re-signed

• King Dunlap (OT)
• Brandon Flowers (CB)
• Trevor Robinson (G/C)
• Ricardo Mathews (DE)

Signed

• Jacoby Jones (WR/KR)
• Orlando Franklin (G)
• Jimmy Wilson (CB/S)
• Patrick Robinson (CB)
• Stevie Johnson (WR)
• Mitch Unrein (DL)

I jumped ahead to 3/19 of last year to include Robinson, Johnson and Unrein.

However, is this year's free agent class really that much better?

• That King Dunlap contract looked as good last offseason as the Joe Barksdale contract looks this offseason.
• Orlando Franklin fits the role of Brandon Mebane, even if they play on opposite sides of the ball, as the veteran that we're expecting big things from.
• Casey Hayward should be better than Patrick Robinson, but who knows?
• Travis Benjamin should be better than Jacoby Jones and Stevie Johnson, but not necessarily both of them combined (?)
• Flowers being re-signed isn't too different from Antonio Gates being re-signed.
• Dwight Lowery can be the Jimmy Wilson defensive back that people get excited about but without a ton of reason.

Obviously, that's not an optimistic way of thinking about it, but it's important to try and look at things clearly. While this year's free agent class looks good enough to turn a 4-12 team into an 8-8 team at least, remember what happened when last year's free agent class didn't work out as planned.