The difference with this Free agent haul

[Joelist]

Actually we did "overpay" (a meaningless term) for Reader but by doing so we served notice that we were willing to pay to get better players. And that helped us with subsequent contracts.

As to this haul, they are younger players entering or about to enter their primes. Also, there is clearly a plan in operation here and line one on it seems to be "fix the bad tackling" and line two is "improve run defense". Even our new Guard is suggestive of a plan - he has played well in a zone blocking scheme which suggests they still want to use that scheme but now recognize they have to have the correct players to implement it.