The first big wave of free agency has ended. The second wave has, too.
As the dollars settle on last week’s spending spree, plenty of big names are still on the board.
Receiver Stefon Diggs had a very good year in his first season back from a torn ACL, notching his seventh 1,000-yard season. The Patriots opted not to continue his contract, which added him to the group of available players. He remains on the market.
So does receiver Jauan Jennings, who landed at No. 23 on the PFT Top 100 list of free agents. He failed to parlay an unexpectedly productive 2024 into an extension with the 49ers. The fact that he didn’t sign quickly after free agency opened suggests that he wanted more than the market will bear.
Receiver Deebo Samuel, No. 29 on the PFT list, also waits for his next team. There was no land rush for a player whose lone Pro Bowl and All-Pro season is now five years in the rear-view mirror. He hit free agency for the first time. He remains available.
Other receivers who are free and clear include Tyreek Hill (who’s recovering from a serious knee injury), Christian Kirk, DeAndre Hopkins, and Keenan Allen.
As running backs go, the best options are gone. Veterans who are available include Joe Mixon, Nick Chubb, Brian Robinson, A.J. Dillon, Raheem Mostert, Najee Harris, and Austin Ekeler.
Edge rusher Joey Bosa, who’s No. 35, was essentially replaced in Buffalo by Bradley Chubb. Bosa is waiting for his next stop; his mother apparently envisions the Bosa brothers teaming up in San Francisco.
Other big-name defenders remain. Future Hall of Fame linebacker Bobby Wagner is unsigned. As is edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney, the first overall pick in the 2014 draft. Veteran defensive end Cameron Jordan is a free agent. Linebacker Lavonte David, a fixture in Tampa Bay since 2012, is unsigned, too.
Then there are the quarterbacks: Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins, Russell Wilson, Jimmy Garoppolo, Joe Flacco, and Tyrod Taylor are the headliners. Currently, only the Cardinals and Steelers are presumably in the market for a QB1.
More signings will surely happen. But, for the most part, the big-money pipeline has sealed shut. The budgets have been busted. Quickly, the spending spree ends and the pre-draft process resumes.
A day before Seahawks G.M. John Schneider addressed the potential impact of Washington’s looming “millionaire tax” on the defending Super Bowl champions, Simms and I stumbled into a conversation about state income taxes during PFT Live.
The spark came from the trade that has sent defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa from the Cowboys (and Texas) to the 49ers (and California). In his last stop, there was no state income tax. At his new team, he’ll lose 13.3 percent, off the top.
It’s not as clean and simple as every penny of compensation being taxed, or not, by the state where the team plays. For road trips, the game check is taxed by the state in which the game happens. It gets more complicated as to per-game roster bonuses. As we hear it, some states try to tax the visiting player based also on a percentage of the full-year roster bonuses and/or the prorated portion of the signing bonus for the season in which the game is played.
And, yes, the lack of state income tax becomes a selling point in free agency, which explains Schneider’s concerns about Washington’s tax rate for millionaires increasing from 0.0 percent to 9.9. But, as Odighizuwa will learn the hard way, that doesn’t matter if the free-agent contract also doesn’t include a no-trade clause.
Regardless, the variations in state income tax create an imbalance as it relates to the most important aspect of anyone’s pay — how much they take home.
Simms mentioned on Thursday’s PFT Live that he heard something interesting from someone in the league who saw the tax discussion from the day before. (And, yes, plenty of people in the league watch PFT Live — probably because it features no phony debates, no false praise, no reckless hype, no minced words, and no performative antics.) There’s an argument to be made that the salary cap should take state income taxes into account.
It would be complicated, given that taxes depend on where games are played. Still, every team has eight or nine home games per year. That’s roughly half of the compensation, taxed based on where the team is located.
The real question is whether teams should get more to spend, given that more of what is paid will end up being taken off the top by the state government. Some teams may not want to do it, since having a higher cap means having a higher floor means spending more money that otherwise would be siphoned away as pure profit.
And the numbers would be significant. At a 2026 salary cap of $301.2 million, providing the Rams, Chargers, and 49ers with a 13.3-percent bump would push the cap to $341.2 million for those teams.
The deeper question is whether state income taxes make a competitive difference. As noted the other day, most of the teams in the no-tax states haven’t been to a Super Bowl this century. (The Seahawks and Buccaneers are the exception; the Titans, Cowboys, Dolphins, Jaguars, and Texans are not.)
Part of the problem is that most players don’t fret about state income taxes, even if they should. Players focus mainly on annual average, the true locker-room measuring stick that determines the pecking order among the most and least valuable players.
Although it would indeed be difficult to come up with the right way to determine cap credits, since the total tax burden depends on where games are played, that would be doable. The bigger challenge would be to get all teams in states with income tax to agree to a higher cap in order to account for it.
News flash: Not every team is as obsessed with winning as they pretend to be. For many owners, it’s about profit. Having more money to spend means having less to buy giant yachts or that much-needed tenth home. Especially since the owners of the teams in the high-tax states are also paying those increased rates, too.
Just kidding. The ultra-rich have seemingly cracked the code on eating nearly every ounce of what they kill. Which is another reason why the owners of the teams in the high-tax states won’t want to have more to spend — even if they have to say they do.
Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman likes some of the ways the NFL has made the game safer than it was when he was playing. But he thinks one rule change designed to reduce wear and tear on players’ bodies may actually cause some injuries.
Aikman, the color commentator for Monday Night Football who has also served as an advisor to the Dolphins, said on the Rodeo Time Podcast that when he was playing, training camp was much more physically demanding than it is now.
“Wichita Falls is the hottest place on earth,” Aikman said of the Cowboys’ training camp location at the end of his career. “Back then you did two-a-days in that kind of heat, day after day after day, two practices a day in full pads. Now the restrictions, probably for the better, players aren’t as taxed as they were.”
But Aikman added that there’s a tradeoff: Players aren’t as physically prepared at the start of the season.
“I think they only wear pads one day a week or one time a day, and they have a walk-through, and then after, I don’t know how it all reads, but it’s pretty player-friendly and favorable,” Aikman said. “And a lot of it, whenever they negotiate the CBA, the owners tend to always win on the financial side of things. And then the players say, ‘Well, all right, then we’re not gonna practice as long, or we’re not gonna practice as often.’ So, then they tend to get concessions when it comes to how much time they’re actually at facilities. I think the only ones who don’t have a voice in those negotiations are the coaches. They kind of have to wait till the dust settles and say, ‘All right, just how often do we get them?’ But some of it is that we see too is a lot of the reasons I think that we see so many injuries, especially early in the year. A lot of soft tissue injuries, a lot of muscle pulls, and things of that nature is the players, they’re just not able to train the way that we once did, they’re not able to callous their bodies as easily. Not that they’re not training hard and all that, but it’s different training on your own as opposed to being on the football field practicing football movements.”
Aikman made clear that he’s not opposed to changing rules to promote safety, but he does think those rules can go too far.
“Player safety is great. As a former quarterback, I do like that they protect quarterbacks,” Aikman said. “With that said, the objective for a defense is to hit the quarterback and affect the quarterback and sometimes I think we’re asking a lot from these defensive players, to try to navigate 300-pound offensive linemen and then not graze the helmet of the quarterback.”
And it’s asking a lot of players not to really go full-contact until Week One.
The Dolphins are signing wide receiver Jalen Tolbert to a one-year deal, according to Jordan Schultz of The Schultz Report.
Tolbert, 27, spent his first four seasons with the Cowboys after they made him a third-round pick in 2022.
He has made 91 catches for 1,093 yards and 10 touchdowns in his career.
Tolbert has seen action on 1,922 offensive snaps and 381 on special teams.
In 2025, he caught 18 passes for 203 yards and a touchdown after the Cowboys brought in George Pickens as their No. 2 wide receiver.
Tolbert played with new Dolphins quarterback Malik Willis in the 2022 Senior Bowl.
The Colts are signing free agent safety Juanyeh Thomas, according to Jordan Schultz of The Schultz Report.
The Colts lost safeties Nick Cross and Rodney Thomas II in free agency this week. They added Thomas and Jonathan Owens, who will compete for playing time.
Thomas, 25, spent the past four seasons with the Cowboys.
He signed as an undrafted free agent and was on the practice squad and the active roster during his time in Dallas. He played 550 defensive snaps and 706 on special teams in 36 games.
Thomas has totaled 62 tackles, five pass breakups and one forced fumble.
