NFL Player News

Young improved a lot in his third year after a rough first two seasons with the Panthers. The 24-year-old quarterback led Carolina to eight wins, a division championship and the playoffs. Young orchestrated four fourth quarter comebacks and six game-winning drives. He threw for over 20 touchdowns for the first time without increasing his interceptions and lowered his sack percentage. Young led the league in deep ball accuracy with a catchable percentage of 75 percent on passes that traveled at least 20 yards in the air. While Young still has work to do to be a top-15 fantasy quarterback, the Panthers are committed to him for at least the next two years now.

It sounds like Williams, who tore his ACL in early November, should be ready for the start of the season based on that timeline. He’ll be penciled in next to fellow injury returner Nick Bosa as the 49ers two starting EDGE players next year. Williams managed one sack in nine starts during his rookie season, adding 20 tackles.

The Dolphins are the first team to meet with Graham as a potential head coaching fit this cycle. The long-time defensive coordinator was in the same role with the Dolphins during the 2019 season, but has spent the last four seasons as the Raiders’ defensive coordinator despite the team going through three head coaching changes over that span. Graham’s defense allowed the fourth-lowest yards per carry on the ground last season, but ranked 25th in points allowed and 14th in total yards allowed. Graham becomes the eighth coach to interview with the Fins for their head coach opening. We’ll see if he’s one of the few called back for a second interview in the coming days.

Flores has long been considered a potential replacement for Mike Tomlin, and will now have a chance to meet with the team he spent the 2022 season with under Tomlin. The former Dolphins head coach has spent the last three seasons as the Vikings’ defensive coordinator, and over that span, elevated the defense from one of the worst in the league to being a top-10 unit. In addition to fielding head coaching requests from the Steelers and Ravens, Flores has also met with the Commanders to discuss their defensive coordinator vacancy. If he’s unable to land a head coaching job, the option to return to Minnesota remains on the table, but Flores is in high demand after turning in one of his strongest years as a coordinator to date.

“It doesn’t make a ton of sense for him to go into a total rebuild” per Pelissero, who rules out Arizona and Las Vegas as landing spots for McDermott. Pelissero mentions that McDermott would be outside of the normal bucket the Steelers hire from, and says Baltimore “makes a lot of sense” while the Titans brass has mutual ties to McDermott from his work with Andy Reid. Seeing McDermott coach Lamar Jackson might be the funniest idea we’ve ever heard of, so of course we’re for it. The Titans also seem like a reasonable landing spot.

“He’s really close to Josh Allen,” Pelissero says while noting the Bills are focusing on a more offensive-minded coach. Apparently multiple teams are waiting for the Broncos to be eliminated to get Webb in for a second interview per Pelissero’s reporting. Based on that, it sure seems likely that the 30-year-old former NFL quarterback stands a good chance of leaving the cycle with a head-coaching gig. The NFL Network reporter also says that Joe Brady is “a candidate, but I don’t know if he is the candidate” in Buffalo.

Dell missed the entire season after tearing his ACL, MCL, and LCL against the Chiefs in Week 16 of the 2024 season. The fact that the head coach is still optimistic is noteworthy, and Dell probably will slot in as Houston’s No. 2 receiver in 2026 assuming he bounces back and is fully recovered from the surgeries. Dell’s return, should it come to pass, will be a development that will make it hard to see Jayden Higgins or Jaylin Noel boosting their fantasy stock in 2026.

It is just a day after the Texans’ season ended, so it’s an unsurprising non-answer. It’s still noteworthy that the answer wasn’t exactly an affirmative, no-questions-asked, yes. “There is a lot of negative talk right now and he understands that,” Ryans said in an answer about how his message to Stroud is to block out the noise. Stroud’s catastrophic playoff performance will likely leave him getting his fifth-year option picked up this offseason, but neither Stroud nor the Texans should exactly be giddy about negotiating off his 2025 season. We’d be surprised if a long-term extension was coming before the conclusion of 2026 — if it comes at all.

Ryans continues to downplay any conversation surrounding Mixon, who missed all of the 2025 season with a foot injury. It was reported in late December that some of Mixon’s issues stemmed from some procedures he got “on his own, away from the Texans,” which could complicate his future with the team and the contract he signed that will keep him with the team through 2026. It’s impossible to say where things truly stand with Mixon and the Texans right now after Ryans and the team spent a full season avoiding the topic, but it seems unlikely he would return to the team next season given how things have played out since Mixon was mysteriously injured last offseason.

Caley’s Texans finished 19th in DVOA in the regular season, but actually picked things up fairly well after an uninspiring 3-5 start. It would be a little surprising to see the Texans move on from the 42-year-old in his first season as an offensive coordinator, but we would have called it a little surprising to see Bobby Slowik get canned after 2024 as well. This will be a situation to watch until we get better clarity.

Dobbins will have a chance to practice and suit up for the AFC Championship Game against the Patriots, something head coach Sean Payton hinted at earlier this month. Dobbins suffered a Lisfranc injury in Week 10 and has been sidelined ever since. Dobbins has rushed 153 times for 772 yards and four touchdowns this season while averaging an impressive 5.0 YPC. How this week of practice goes will likely be the deciding factor in whether or not the Broncos choose to activate him from injured reserve, but with Bo Nix (ankle) already out for the remainder of the playoffs, they will take any help they can get from other playmakers.