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Clayborn, who turns 30 in July, led the Falcons with a career-high 9.5 sacks in 2017. His total included a franchise-record six sacks in a win over the Dallas Cowboys.

Known for his relentless effort, Clayborn also had a team-high 17 quarterback hits this past season. He played 526 defensive snaps.

Clayborn could help the Patriots’ pass rush, which noticeably needed a boost in Super Bowl LII. Trey Flowers, who led the team in 2017 with 6.5 sacks, is the Patriots’ top player at defensive end, and he returns in 2018, the final year of his contract.

The Patriots relied on Flowers heavily last season, as they struggled to build depth at the position behind him. Clayborn, who is the Patriots’ first signing of a player from another team since free agency began Wednesday, could help ease some of that burden in 2018.

The Patriots also have second-year player Deatrich Wise Jr. at the position, and he showed promise after joining the team as a 2017 fourth-round pick out of Arkansas, playing in every game and totaling five sacks.

Before free agency, Clayborn told ESPN, “I got some years left in me.”

He indicated an agreement with the Patriots on Instagram on Friday afternoon, posting the team’s logo with the caption: “Dope.”

Clayborn began his career as a first-round draft pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and he posted 7.5 sacks — his previous benchmark — as a rookie in 2011. However, he battled injury issues during his four seasons with the Bucs, playing in just one game during the 2014 season and playing just three games during the 2012 campaign.

The injury bug again hit Clayborn with the Falcons in 2016, when he was placed on injured reserve with a ruptured biceps, which prevented him from finishing the season and playing in Super Bowl LI. He revealed he contemplated retirement following that injury but had a discussion with his wife and decided to continue playing.

Hill adds to a backfield that lost Lewis to the Tennessee Titans.

He was drafted by the Bengals, but the writing was on the wall for the 25-year-old as it became known that Cincinnati coveted a running back in the 2017 NFL draft and eventually took Joe Mixon in the second round.

He had a successful rookie season in 2014, rushing 222 times for 1,124 yards and 9 touchdowns. But he has never been the same since fumbling late in the 2015 AFC wild-card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, ultimately contributing to an eventual loss. Since that game, Hill has combined for 955 yards and nine touchdowns in the last two seasons and lost playing time to Mixon last year.

With Burkhead and James White locks to make the Patriots’ roster at running back, Hill projects to compete with Mike Gillislee and veteran special-teamer Brandon Bolden for a roster spot. One area in which he could make his mark is as a power rusher; the 230-pound Hill is the biggest running back on the Patriots’ roster.

As for the 6-foot-6, 303-pound Tobin, his addition highlights how the Patriots must make contingency plans at left tackle after Solder signed a four-year, $62 million deal with the Giants as one of the NFL’s top free agents. After entering the NFL as an undrafted free agent out of Iowa in 2013, Tobin has been with the Eagles (2013-16) and Seahawks (2017), appearing in 57 games, with 21 starts.

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“As Rick said yesterday, this is a lifetime deal,” Cousins said. “That’s the goal. This is a three-year deal but the expectation from both sides is we raise our kids here and then if everything goes as planned that I’d be here for a long, long time.”

Joined by Vikings owner Mark Wilf, coach Mike Zimmer and general manager Rick Spielman at his introductory news conference, Cousins became the franchise’s next quarterback, a role Minnesota allocated many financial resources toward in free agency. The Vikings had over $50 million in available cap space ahead of when Cousins signed his contract. He carries a $24 million cap hit in 2018, which leaves Minnesota with just over $26 million for the rest of their free agency needs and to structure contract extensions this offseason.

Cousins earned $44 million playing under the franchise tag in each of his past two seasons in Washington and was a rare commodity as a proven, sub-30-year-old quarterback with very little injury history when he hit the open market.

Only two other times have proven veteran quarterbacks become free agents in the salary-cap era: in 2006, when Drew Brees transitioned from the Chargers to the Saints, and again in 2012, when Peyton Manning signed with the Denver Broncos.

But injuries played a role in each of those circumstances. Brees became a free agent months after he suffered a serious shoulder injury. Manning missed the entire 2011 season with a neck injury.

In each of the past three seasons where he threw for more than 4,000 yards, Cousins made every start (49 games, including one playoff appearance). With a proven track record and that kind of durability, the Vikings were all in.

“If you have an opportunity to go out and potentially get a franchise quarterback or a quarterback that’s going to be leading you for years to come,” Spielman said. “He’s right now in the prime of his career. Our history tells us if we hit on a player, we’re going to do everything we can to keep that player here. Especially at that quarterback position. That’s why this was so unique. “The fully guaranteed part, I know it’s the first time, but also when you have an opportunity to get a potential franchise quarterback, you know where the leverage is going. We respected that and I respected that.”

Cousins only visit this week was to Minnesota. After the quarterback landscape began to take shape on Tuesday with three ex-Vikings quarterbacks finding jobs elsewhere between Case Keenum and Denver, Sam Bradford and Arizona and Teddy Bridgewater and the New York Jets, Cousins and McCartney decided against any other visits.

“We had intentions to potentially consider a second visit and, as I said, on that Tuesday, it was a mad scramble for every team to fill that quarterback slot,” McCartney said. “It wasn’t necessary at that point.”

McCartney said Minnesota was “not even close” to the best offer Cousins received, but he would not detail which team chose to offer Cousins more money.

“It’s not easy doing business,” he said. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell teams no, but I have a lot of respect for how everybody handled it, and we’re just thrilled to have Kirk here in Minnesota.”

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McCarron, 27, was a free agent after winning a grievance filed against the Cincinnati Bengals last year to determine whether he had been incorrectly put on the non-football injury list as a rookie. He not only won his grievance for the incorrect designation, but he also was owed back pay for the time spent on the list in 2014.

McCarron played in five regular-season games in the 2015 season and started three, completing 66.4 percent of his passes for 854 yards and six touchdowns. He also started an AFC wild-card playoff game that season, completing 56.1 percent of his passes for one touchdown and one interception in an eventual a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

McCarron has contended several times that he wants his chance to start somewhere, and it almost happened when the Browns attempted to send a second- and third-round pick to the Bengals in the fall. However, the paperwork didn’t go through before the trade deadline and McCarron remained with Cincinnati for the 2017 season.

McCarron’s signing comes after several veteran quarterbacks had found new teams in free agency this week, leaving Buffalo as perhaps the only remaining team that could offer him a chance to start this season.

The signing is unlikely to change the Bills’ apparent plans to draft a quarterback next month. Buffalo owns the Nos. 12 and 21 overall picks, as well as two selections in each of the second and third rounds. The Bills could package those picks to trade up for one of the draft’s top quarterbacks.

ESPN’s Katherine Terrell contributed to this report.

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The addition of Johnson was an important one for the Jets, whose system is predicated on man-to-man coverage by the corners. Before landing Johnson, they had only one starting-caliber corner under contract, Buster Skrine, who is best suited to the No. 3 role.

The Jets also have been in talks with Morris Claiborne, who started 15 games last season. There’s still a chance they could re-sign Claiborne, which would fortify a secondary that allowed 30 touchdown passes last season.

Johnson posted a farewell to the Rams on his Instagram account Monday. He will be reunited with secondary coach Dennard Wilson, who was his position coach with the Rams through 2016.

Johnson, 28, spent the past two years as the Rams’ primary cornerback and played under the franchise tag in both those seasons, his salary jumping to $16.74 million in 2017. He was arguably the best corner available on the free-agent market this offseason, mainly because of his size, his ability to match up with elite receivers and his track record for staying healthy.

Among 86 cornerbacks with at least 325 coverage snaps, Pro Football Focus had Johnson ranked 35th in opponents’ completion percentage (57.3) and 36th in opponents’ passer rating (79.8) when targeted. He allowed 1.33 yards per coverage snap, which put him within the bottom 20 percent of qualified cornerbacks.

But Johnson also spent a lot of time shadowing the likes of Pierre Garcon, Dez Bryant, Marqise Lee, Larry Fitzgerald, DeAndre Hopkins, Michael Thomas and Alshon Jeffery in 2017. Those seven combined to catch only 57.7 percent of their targets when Johnson was responsible for covering them, nearly 8 percentage points below the NFL average, according to numbers compiled by ESPN.

A third-round pick out of Montana in 2012, Johnson has 18 interceptions and 42 pass breakups over the past six seasons, playing in 85 of a potential 96 regular-season games. During that time, he has proved capable of playing on both sides of the field.

ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez contributed to this report.