The Dolphins and Cardinals aren’t the only teams taking massive dead-money charges for quarterbacks no longer on the team.
The Jets are, too.
As noted by Rich Cimini of ESPN, the Jets will carry $48 million in 2026 for 2023-24 starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers and 2025 starting quarterback Justin Fields.
Overall, the Jets have $104 million in total dead money this year, third highest in the league.
The cap charge for Rodgers arises from his 2025 release, a post-June 1 designation that spread the dead money over two years. The Fields charge comes from the back end of his two-year contract signed in 2025, the recent trade that sent him to the Chiefs, and the fact that the Jets will pay $8 million of his $11 million in 2026 compensation.
The good news is that the Jets got quarterback Geno Smith for only $3.3 million this season. The better news is that, per Cimini, the Jets are expected to have more than $150 million in 2027 cap space.
Still, the Jets will be operating in 2026 with more than a third of the $301.2 million salary cap devoted to players who no longer play for the team.
If Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who tore an ACL last December, isn’t ready for the first week of the 2026 regular season, his new backup will make a very specific type of history.
As noted by Rich Cimini of ESPN, a Week 1 start by Justin Fields for Kansas City would make him the first player in NFL history to open the season as the starting quarterback for four different teams in four consecutive years.
In 2023, Fields started for the Bears. In 2024, Fields started for the Steelers (Russell Wilson was injured). In 2025, Fields started for the Jets.
He’s already one of seven quarterbacks since 1950 to make three straight Week 1 starts for three different teams.
And with the Jets due to play in Kansas City at some point in 2026, the schedule makers could set the stage for Fields to potentially start against his most recent team for the second straight season. Last year, Steelers-Jets in Week 1 gave Fields an immediate shot at his most recent former team.
The Eagles are adding a tight end who last played in the AFC East.
Philadelphia has agreed to terms with tight end Stone Smartt on a one-year deal, according to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport.
Smartt, 27, spent the 2025 season with the Jets. He appeared in 15 games with one start for the club, mainly playing special teams. He caught seven passes for 52 yards.
A former college quarterback, Smartt spent his first three pro seasons with the Chargers after going undrafted in 2022. In his 53 career games, he’s tallied 38 receptions for 432 yards with one touchdown.
The 2026 NFL draft is still more than a month away, but five teams have already accumulated two first-round picks.
The Dolphins became the latest team to get a second first-rounder when they agreed to trade wide receiver Jaylen Waddle to the Broncos. Miami will have its own pick (No. 11 overall) as well as Denver’s pick (No. 30).
The Jets have their own pick (No. 2) and the Colts’ pick (No. 16) from the Sauce Gardner trade.
The Cowboys have their own pick (No. 12) and the Packers’ pick (No. 20) from the Micah Parsons trade.
The Browns have their own pick (No. 6) and the Jaguars’ pick (No. 24) from the draft-day trade a year ago that allowed the Jaguars to move up to draft Travis Hunter.
The Chiefs have their own pick (No. 9) and the Rams’ pick (No. 29) from the Trent McDuffie trade.
A sixth team was poised to get a second first-round pick when the Raiders agreed to trade Maxx Crosby to the Ravens, but that trade fell through and the Ravens kept their first-round pick.
Five teams don’t have a first-round pick: The Broncos, Falcons, Colts, Packers and Jaguars.
The teams with two first-round picks all missed the playoffs last season and are attempting to rebuild their roster. A draft with two first-round picks is a big part of the rebuilding process.
No one does “do as we say not as we do” better than NFL owners. Some of the ones who don’t want to be publicly criticized by players have no qualms about publicly criticizing them.
Case in point: Jets owner Woody Johnson. He and his partners successfully (sort of) stifled the NFL Players Association’s ability to publicize report cards that Johnson dismissed as “totally bogus.” Meanwhile, Johnson publicly criticized quarterback Justin Fields during the 2025 season.
“It’s hard when you have a quarterback with a rating that he’s got,” Johnson said during quarterly league meetings last October, regarding the Jets’ latest struggles with Fields at quarterback. “If we can just complete a pass, it would look good,” Johnson added.
Fields took the high road, but he surely was bugged at some level by the idea that he was being thrown under the bus by the boss. Now that Fields will be playing for the Chiefs, he’ll get a chance to prove Johnson wrong.
And, yes, the Chiefs host the Jets this season.
There’s no guarantee Fields will take a regular-season snap in 2026. Much of that depends on whether Patrick Mahomes is healthy when Week 1 rolls around. It also depends on whether the Chiefs put Mahomes on a pitch count as he works his way back to 100 percent.
Mahomes will want to do everything. The team may try to hold him in check, for his own good. Regardless, Fields becomes another weapon for the offense.
Besides, Fields wasn’t horrible last year. His passer rating was 89.5. He completed 62.7 percent of his passes, with seven touchdown passes and one interception. His career numbers aren’t awful, either; they’re not nearly as bad as Johnson’s assessment.
No one forced the Jets to give Fields $30 million fully guaranteed at signing on a two-year deal. Fields has had moments. And now he has extra motivation to use 2026 as the foundation for the chance to become the latest Jets alumnus to become a much better quarterback elsewhere.
Maybe he’ll eventually do well enough that, one of these days, the Jets will do a trade to bring him back. Like they did last week with Geno Smith.
