Four years ago, Malik Willis was favored to be the first quarterback in the draft. He wasn’t.
At pick No. 86, Willis went third among all quarterbacks, behind Kenny Pickett and Desmond Ridder.
It never really clicked for Willis in Tennessee, and he became expendable after two seasons. The Packers obtained Willis for a seventh-round pick not long before the start of the 2024 season.
While he has been the clear No. 2 to Jordan Love for the last two years, Willis has made the most of his limited opportunities.
In 11 appearances with four starts for the Packers, Willis completed 70 of 89 passes (78.6 percent) for 972 yards (10.92 yards per attempt), six touchdowns, and no interceptions. His passer rating was 134.64. He also has 261 rushing yards on 42 attempts (6.2 yards per carry) for three touchdowns.
Yes, the sample size is small. But, yes, the impact has been significant.
And he’s less than three weeks away from free agency.
Where he goes, and what he’ll get, becomes one of the more intriguing questions of free agency. The coming class of free-agent quarterbacks is headlined by Aaron Rodgers and Daniel Jones. One is 42, and the other is recovering from a torn Achilles tendon. Both are generally expected to return to their current teams (Steelers and Colts, respectively).
Other current free-agent options for quarterback-needy teams include Russell Wilson, Marcus Mariota, Joe Flacco, Tyrod Taylor, Pickett, Zack Wilson, and Jimmy Garoppolo.
The Kirk Cousins contract adjustment from January guarantees he’ll be cut on March 11 or 12, so he’s essentially a free agent. Kyler Murray and Tua Tagovailoa likely will be released, unless a trade can be worked out for either or both. The Jets also could move on from Justin Fields. And Mac Jones looms as a potential trade option, if the 49ers are willing to move him. (They say they’re not, but ‘tis the season for posturing.)
Then there’s Geno Smith, who already has $18.5 million fully guaranteed from the Raiders in 2026, with the remaining $8 million vesting on the third day of the 2026 league year. He could be available for trade, or he could be cut. (The Raiders also could keep him as the bridge to Fernando Mendoza, if they make him the first overall pick in the draft.)
Willis’s numbers are undeniable. Is he ready to be a full-time starter? And is a team ready to give him a starter-level contract?
As starter-level contracts go, the range is broad. The market tops, generally speaking, at $60 million per year. The bottom of the veteran starter market, as of last year, was $10.5 million for Russell Wilson (who started only three games). Fields has a $20 million average, and he received $30 million guaranteed on a two-year deal. (Fields also was eventually benched, after being publicly bad-mouthed by his thin-skinned owner.)
Sam Darnold, with only one viable suitor, received $33.5 million per year on a three-year deal from Seattle, which has quickly proven to be a steal. (In hindsight, he should have signed a one-year deal, like Jones did in Indy. With no other options, however, it wouldn’t have been easy to insist on a one-year commitment.)
Where will Willis fit? Much of it depends on the number of teams that pursue him. The Dolphins, who are now run by a pair of former Packers employees, are a team to watch — if they can wedge Willis’s contract into the cap wreckage of the Tua contract. The Cardinals, where Packers coach Matt LaFleur’s brother, Mike, is now the head coach, could make sense, too.
The Steelers could be an option, but they seem to be content to wait for Rodgers to make a decision. Which would take them out of play in the early days of free agency. The Vikings will be looking for a veteran to compete with J.J. McCarthy.
And don’t rule out the Ravens. If (and it’s not a big if but it’s still on the radar screen) they trade Lamar Jackson, they’ll need a quarterback, too.
Other teams that will or at least could be looking for a veteran quarterback include the Jets, Browns, Colts (if Jones leaves), and Falcons.
Someone surely will want Willis. The more teams that want him, the more money he’ll make.
The process will accelerate next week in Indianapolis, where every team will meet with every agent who represents every looming free agent in an annual swap meet of untraceable tampering that happens with no electronic footprints or popcorn trail.
Our guess is that Willis will land between $20 million and $30 million per year — unless a land rush emerges. If that happens, who knows? $35 million? $40 million? (While $40 million sounds like a lot, it’s still only 66.6 percent of the current market limit.)
Or maybe Willis will have the leverage and willingness to insist on a one-year deal that pays him a relatively modest salary but gives him another shot at free agency in 2027. (A no-tag clause would be even better, if not virtually impossible to finagle on a one-year deal.)
However it goes, it’s a story that isn’t getting the kind of attention it should, or that it will once teams start jostling for a chance to see whether Willis can do on a full-time basis what he did as a part-timer for the Packers.
His numbers suggest that he could be not just a capable starter but a potential superstar. With true franchise quarterbacks so hard to find, why wouldn’t someone roll the dice on the possibility of landing a player who could become one of the best quarterbacks in the league?
With the two-week window for applying the franchise tag open, the Jets have a decision to make about running back Breece Hall.
In a comprehensive item detailing the team’s various options, Zack Rosenblatt of The Athletic concludes that “it feels likely” the Jets will apply the non-exclusive franchise tag or the transition tag to Hall, who finished his rookie deal with his first 1,000-yard season.
The non-exclusive franchise tag for running backs will result in a one-year, $14.1 million contract.
The goal could be to tag and trade Hall, either during the offseason (and, ideally, before the July 15 deadline for doing a long-term deal) or before the trade deadline. At that point, however, Hall’s new team would have him for only a portion of the season, with Hall heading for free agency in 2027 or a second tag, in the amount of $16.92 million.
If the Jets don’t tag Hall before next week’s Scouting Combine (a/k/a Tampering Central), Hall’s representation will undoubtedly develop a clear picture of other teams with interest in Hall, if/when he becomes a free agent.
The Jets didn’t trade Hall during the 2025 season, even though the Chiefs reportedly offered a fourth-round pick.
The Jets also could sign Hall, a second-round pick in 2022, to a long-term deal, like they did with 2022 first-round receiver Garrett Wilson. Alternatively, the Jets could sign Hall to a long-term deal and later trade him, like they did with 2022 first-round cornerback Sauce Gardner.
Buried in this current predicament is the fact that former Jets G.M. Joe Douglas hit on Gardner, Wilson, and Hall during the 2022 draft. Douglas has since been fired, Gardner has since been traded, and Wilson could ultimately be the only one left.
Proving yet again that, yes, dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things.
Longtime assistant coach Wink Martindale interviewed twice in January for the Jets’ defensive coordinator position, and a new report says that Martindale heard two different things from head coach Aaron Glenn at those two interviews — perhaps because Jets owner Woody Johnson told Glenn to change his plans for the defense.
Rich Cimini of ESPN reports that Martindale came away from the second interview under the impression that Glenn had changed the parameters of the defensive coordinator job. After the first interview, Martindale believed he’d be able to run his own defense if he took the job. After the second interview, Martindale believed it was Glenn who would be calling the defense.
So what changed? The report says Glenn attended meetings at Johnson’s home in Florida, and there’s “speculation that Johnson, who has a reputation for meddling, had instructed Glenn to run the defense himself.”
Ultimately, Glenn gave the defensive coordinator job to Brian Duker, just a day after he first interviewed for the job — and long after Glenn had interviewed eight other candidates. It’s unclear why Duker emerged as a candidate so late in the process and then got the job so quickly, but it could suggest that something fundamentally changed about the Jets’ defensive coordinator job along the way.
Glenn is expected to call the defense himself in a year when he’s going to have to convince Johnson that he’s making progress in turning the Jets around — or else next year, Johnson will be looking for a new head coach.
The Dolphins are in a full blown Two Days After St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
The latest to go is receiver Tyreek Hill. And it’s the least surprising.
Even without the significant knee injury he suffered on September 29, this was coming. Even without the firing of G.M. Chris Grier and coach Mike McDaniel, this was coming.
Hill was due to make $35 million in 2026, the final year of his contract. He had a $5 million roster bonus that was due on the third day of the new league year.
He was always going to be released. He was always going to be available on the open market.
Now, for the first time, he’ll be free and clear to sign with anyone.
The question is whether Hill will be signed before he’s fully and completely healthy and, if so, whether his contract will include protections based on Hill eventually passing a physical. Sometimes, a player has enough leverage (like receiver Chris Godwin a year ago) to avoid such limitations on his pay.
Hill turns 32 on March 1. The best of his best days are likely behind him. If healthy, however, he’s still pretty damn good.
The most obvious potential destination is Kansas City. Last year at the Super Bowl, Hill expressed some regret for leaving in the first place. With Eric Bieniemy back as the offensive coordinator, the Chiefs could decide to bring Hill back, too. Which may have the added benefit of getting tight end Travis Kelce to return for another season.
The Chargers could become a potential destination, given McDaniel’s arrival there as offensive coordinator. They desperately need effective weapons for quarterback Justin Herbert — and a 32-year-old Hill would instantly be better than anything else they currently have.
Other teams with needs at the position should give Hill a look, including (to name a few) the Bills, Ravens, Steelers, Packers, Jets (who tried to trade for him four years ago), Patriots, and Seahawks (who need a strong, consistent complement to Jaxon Smith-Njigba).
What’s good for the goose apparently isn’t good for the gander.
The NFL’s aggressive effort to end publication of annual NFL Players Association report cards resulted in a 26-page arbitration ruling that gave the league a hollow victory at best, since it failed to achieve the league’s broader goal of killing the entire project. The written decision also includes a footnote acknowledging that owners have engaged in the same behavior about which they were complaining.
"[T]he NFLPA is correct that there have been occasions in the past where owners or others engaged in public criticisms of Players and no known efforts were made by the NFL [Management Council], reasonable or otherwise, to curtail those comments,” arbitrator Scott E. Buchheit wrote at footnote 9 to the decision. “To the contrary, some were placed on NFL.com. While those situations are of course not before me to decide whether they violated Article 51, the fact remains that both parties could reasonably anticipate some flexibility on how Article 51 is applied.”
The opinion contains no specific instances of owner criticism of players. Two recent examples exist.
In October 2025, Jets owner Woody Johnson publicly complained about quarterback Justin Fields.
“It’s hard when you have a quarterback with a rating that he’s got,” Johnson said about Fields. “If we can just complete a pass, it would look good.”
More recently, Bills owner Terry Pegula implicitly acknowledged that receiver Keon Coleman was a wasted second-round pick when attempting to blame the failed selection on the coaching staff.
The message to the NFLPA is obvious: The next time an owner publicly complains about a player, a grievance under Article 51 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement should immediately be filed.
And there quite possibly will be a next time, since the Friday memo from the league office to the teams (which overstated the outcome) contained no recommendation to curtail any future public criticisms of players.
