NFL Free Agency 2017 # Winners and Losers of Day 1

The madness is well and truly underway.

At 4 p.m. ET on Thursday, free agency officially opened across the National Football League. Not that there hadn't been plenty of craziness already.

The "legal tampering" period earlier in the week led to any number of deals being agreed to, although they couldn't officially be signed until Thursday afternoon—deals that lead to some happy NFL teams and even happier agents.

Pierre Garcon's rep is looking for a new boat as we speak.

I've already offered up grades for Wednesday's moves, and my esteemed colleague Brad Gagnon will be doing the same for Thursday's signings.

However, there's more than one way to skin the proverbial cat (one of the more disturbing turns of phrase you'll hear), so we're going to look at that latter group a little differently here.

Which teams made the best use of their available cap space and made themselves better? Who got caught-flat-footed and missed out on the first wave of free agency? And who is joining Garcon's agent at the marina?

In other words, who are Thursday's biggest winners and losers in free agency?

Well, it didn't take long for us to hit the boat-shopping part of Thursday's program.

The agent looking for a new 45-footer is Jason Chayut of SportStars, who is the representative of New England Patriots cornerback Stephon Gilmore.

You heard that right.

In one of the biggest surprises of the first "official" day of free agency, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (who, given his activity level the past 48 hours, is obviously a robot from the future) reports that Gilmore will bolt the Buffalo Bills for their AFC East rivals in Beantown.

Per ESPN's Adam Schefter, the deal is five years and $65 million, including the most guaranteed money ($40 million) the Patriots have ever given a defensive player.

Jack-pot.

You may question of the wisdom of spending huge money on an up-and-down young cornerback who ranked 60th at the position last year at Pro Football Focus.

But it cannot be argued that Gilmore is having a very good day. In addition to landing a truck full of money, the 26-year-old goes from a team that hasn't been to the playoffs since Bill Clinton was president to the team that's won two of the last three Super Bowls.

Gilmore ain't looking for some over-sized dinghy.

He's in the market for a yacht.

Free agency in 2017 was something of a scheduled trip for a root canal for the Arizona Cardinals.

They knew it was coming, and they knew it was going to be very unpleasant.

It hasn't been all bad. As Jason La Canfora wrote for CBS Sports, the Cardinals agreed to terms on a five-year, $83 million megadeal with top pass-rusher Chandler Jones that will give the team more cap flexibility than they had with Jones playing under the franchise tag.

However, in some respects it was too little, too late.

Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweeted that defensive end Calais Campbell is leaving the desert after agreeing to terms on a whopper of his own with the Jacksonville Jaguars—a contract that will net the 31-year-old an average annual salary of $15 million.

The defections didn't stop there. Per Schefter the Redbirds are also losing starting strong safety Tony Jefferson to the Baltimore Ravens.

It isn't that these moves were unexpected. From the day the Cardinals tagged Jones it's been believed that put Arizona in a position where they just couldn't afford to retain Jefferson and Campbell.

Certainly not at $24 million in combined annual salary.

The Cardinals moved quicly to replace Jefferson with veteran Antoine Bethea, but Campbell's loss can't be overstated. Campbell was the No. 1 3-4 defensive end in the NFL last year per Pro Football Focus by a wide margin, and the hole he leaves behind in Phoenix is as big as his 300-pound frame.

The Cardinals knew this day was coming, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt.