As the details regarding various free-agent deals make their way into PFT headquarters, some things stand out.
For the wave of 2026 contracts, one specific fact stands out clearly.
The three-year deal negotiated by the Patriots and offensive lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker includes per-game roster bonuses in the amount of $4.25 million. Per year.
It’s the largest per-game roster bonus we’ve ever seen, by far. It works out to $250,000 earned for each game he plays. And $250,000 lost for each game he misses.
The contract otherwise has a signing bonus of $7.2 million and base salaries of $2.3 million for 2026 (fully guaranteed), $9.5 million for 2027 ($7 million of which is fully-guaranteed at signing), and $9.5 million for 2028.
Vera-Tucker, a first-round pick of the Jets in 2021, has $2 million in annual incentives, tied to playing time and qualifying for the Pro Bowl.
The contract also has annual workout bonuses of $250,000. The 2026 workout bonus is fully guaranteed, but it must be earned.
The $4.25 million in per-game roster bonuses for 2026 are also fully guaranteed, but they also must be earned. (The guarantees only come into play if Vera-Tucker is released before or during the 2026 season.)
The Patriots had reason to protect themselves. A first-round pick in 2021, Vera-Tucker missed all of 2025 due to a torn triceps. He also missed 24 other games in four seasons.
Still, it’s a massive amount that is tied directly to his ability to play. It also creates a sizable incentive to make him inactive in late-season games that carry no real meaning.
We’ll see how it goes. There’s no precedent to compare it to. In all, $12.75 million is tied to being able to play. That makes the base APY as low as $9.75 million and as high as $14 million.
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The Dolphins announced that they’ve re-signed three players on Thursday and they also agreed to terms with an addition to the roster.
Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports that defensive lineman Robert Beal is set to sign a one-year deal. Beal was not tendered as a restricted free agent by the 49ers.
Beal had 14 tackles in seven games last season and he had 22 tackles and a sack in 18 games over his first two seasons.
The Dolphins have also re-signed defensive lineman Matthew Butler, linebacker Willie Gay, and kicker Riley Patterson. Butler had 12 tackles in 12 games last season while Gay recorded 18 in his 17 appearances. Patterson was 27-of-29 on field goals after being signed to replace the injured Jason Sanders last year.
The Raiders negotiated the contract on Monday. It’s now been officially signed.
The team announced the transaction on Thursday morning.
The Raiders will pay Linderbaum $81 million over three years. The structure of the deal makes every penny fully guaranteed as a practical matter. (The only way to avoid a $21 million salary for 2028 is to cut him after one season and $30 million paid, with the next $30 million fully guaranteed.)
The last hurdle was the physical. He could have failed it. He didn’t.
The 50-percent increase in the center market makes the Linderbaum contract the most stunning of the current cycle. The Raiders grossly overpaid; we’ve yet to identify any team that was willing to go above $22 million per year.
Whatever the reason (a “dysfunction tax” is the most obvious) they still undoubtedly and unquestionably overpaid. And they agreed to a three-year deal that puts him back on the open market in 2029, ditching a fourth or a fifth year that would have been non-guaranteed and that would have given the Raiders the ability to keep him around without having to potentially give him another raise.
The Raiders agreed to the Linderbaum contract before knowing Maxx Crosby’s contract would end up back on the books. There could have been a temptation to find something, anything, to help them avoid (or at least to rework) the deal, like they did with Jimmy Garoppolo in 2023 and Rodger Saffold in 2014.
That’s not the case. Linderbaum will cash in — and he has raised the bar with a deal that will help all other high-end centers who will be in line for new contracts.
Sure, the rest of the league may not like it. Owner Mark Davis could get a cold shoulder and/or a side eye or two at the annual meeting later this month. Regardless, the market is the market. And the market for centers has now skyrocketed from $18 million per year to $27 million per year.
The Seahawks are keeping their fullback.
Via Tom Pelissero of NFL Media, Brady Russell has agreed to a two-year deal to re-sign with Seattle.
Russell, 27, has been with Seattle since 2023, winning Super Bowl LX with the club in February.
He appeared in all 17 games this season, becoming one of the club’s special teams aces by playing 87 percent of the snaps on the unit. He was on the field for six percent of offensive snaps.
Russell totaled 14 tackles in 2025 with one fumble recovery.
The Falcons will have defensive lineman LaCale London back in 2026.
They announced London’s re-signing on Thursday morning. They did not announce any terms of the deal.
London had 30 tackles, five sacks and a forced fumble in 13 games during the 2025 season. The starts were the first of a career that’s also seen London play in seven games for the Falcons in 2023 and one game for the Bears in 2021.
The Falcons have made several additions to their front seven this week. They’ve agreed to terms with Chris Williams, Azeez Ojulari, Cameron Thomas, Channing Tindall, and Christian Harris while David Onyemata and Kaden Elliss have moved on.
While it can be argued (and Simms and I definitely argued about it this morning on PFT Live) that the Raiders and Ravens should have handled various aspects of the failed Maxx Crosby trade differently, the outcome presents an opportunity to make changes aimed at preventing such outcomes in the future.
Simms had a good idea. Before a major trade in the offseason, all potentially interested teams get a chance to perform a physical on the player before proceeding. Then, the trade agreement (if there is one) happens without the condition that the player must pass a physical. Once the deal is done, it’s done. (Obviously, it would be difficult to use that approach for in-season trades.)
Throughout the morning, I’ve been running the idea by folks around the league. And here’s our official proposal, not only as to players who may be traded at the start of the league year but also as to impending free agents.
They all go to Indianapolis during the Scouting Combine. They go through the same medical review process that every incoming player experiences. And because it’s a collective process, no one will have to declare themselves as being interested in any player before getting the medical information.
Then, after the Combine, a trade can be negotiated without the requirement that the player must pass a physical. The new team takes the player as is, with the benefit of the information freshly gathered in Indianapolis.
It would avoid glitches, like the one that happened with Crosby and the Ravens. It also would prevent situations in which a free agent agrees to terms during the negotiating period, shows up to sign the contract, takes a physical, and something unexpected turns up.
That happened in 2023, with the Raiders and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. He had a foot injury that prompted the Raiders to re-do the contract in order to secure protections against the foot not healing properly. It also happened in 2014, also with the Raiders. Former Rams offensive lineman Rodger Saffold agreed to terms. The Raiders then determined that he failed the physical. (Saffold re-signed with the Rams, for less than what he had been offered by the Raiders.)
All of this can be avoided, if the teams interested in an impending free agent have access to a physical conducted at the same place and at the same time the league at large is poking and prodding the incoming players.
The doctors are already in Indianapolis. And the player will have to take a physical at some point, anyway. Given that 32 different teams could have 32 different opinions about a given player’s overall condition, it makes sense for all of them to have the relevant medical information before any of them negotiate a contract with him.
It’s the most obvious solution to a problem that was highlighted by the Crosby situation. He could have done a physical in Indianapolis two weeks ago, with a trade deal being reached after the medical information was obtained. Any/every other player who agreed to terms this week could have done the same thing, eliminating the possibility of finding out too late that the team isn’t comfortable with something about his overall health.
The fix is simple. The Crosby fiasco cries out for it. There’s no reason to not adopt it by the start of the next new league year.
The Bears have re-signed two more of their own players.
They announced that defensive back Elijah Hicks and offensive lineman Jordan McFadden will return on one-year deals. They also confirmed their previously reported agreements with defensive lineman Daniel Hardy, linebacker D’Marco Jackson, and quarterback Case Keenum.
Hicks was a 2022 seventh-round pick in Chicago and he’s played in 61 regular season games for the team. He saw most of his time on special teams in 2025 and had 19 tackles. He had 103 tackles, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery in his first three seasons.
McFadden played in nine games last season and started the team’s divisional round loss to the Rams. He also made 13 appearances with the Chargers in his first two NFL seasons.
The big-spending Titans are not done making moves in free agency.
Tennessee has agreed to a two-year contract with former Washington defensive end Jacob Martin, according to multiple reports.
The 30-year-old Martin has had a circuitous NFL career: Originally a 2018 sixth-round pick of the Seahawks, he has also played for the Texans, Jets, Broncos, Texans again, Colts and Bears before signing with the Commanders last year. The Titans will be his eighth NFL team.
Last season may have been the best of Martin’s career: He played in all 17 games, starting 14, and recorded a career-high 5.5 sacks. The Titans will hope to see him continue to improve as another piece in an overhauled Tennessee roster.
The Broncos have announced Sean Payton’s full coaching staff for the 2026 season.
The most significant change comes at offensive coordinator. Davis Webb is moving up from quarterbacks coach and Payton is handing the offensive play-calling duties to him as well. The rest of the offensive staff includes offensive run game coordinator/assistant head coach Zach Strief, pass game coordinator John Morton, offensive line coach Chris Morgan, running backs coach Lou Ayeni, wide receivers coach Ronald Curry, tight ends coach Austin King, quarterbacks coach Logan Kilgore, and director of game management/assistant quarterbacks coach Evan Rothstein. Kyle Kempt, JD Johnson, and Willie Snead will all be quality control coaches.
Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph will oversee a group that includes senior defensive assistant Joe Vitt, pass game coordinator Robert Livingston, defensive line coach Jamar Cain, defensive backs coach Doug Belk, inside linebackers coach Jeff Schmedding, and outside linebackers coach Isaac Shewmaker. Brian Niedermeyer and Todd Davis are the quality control coaches on that side of the ball.
Special teams coordinator/assistant head coach Darren Rizzi, assistant special teams coach Marwan Maalouf, special teams quality control coach Zach Line, and assistant to the head coach Paul Kelly make up the rest of the staff.
Maxx is back. And he’s apparently not leaving again.
Per a league source, the Raiders are currently telling teams that defensive end Maxx Crosby won’t be traded, in the aftermath of the failed effort to ship him to the Ravens for a pair of first-round picks.
The Raiders, we’re told, never wanted to trade him. He wanted out. Now that he’s back and has publicly recommitted to the Raiders, he’s staying put.
Obviously, the question of whether Crosby would pass a physical with another team looms over the possibility of a new trade. And, at a minimum, it cries out for a better way to review a player’s health before the horse gets out of the barn on a possible trade. (More to come on that.)
The Raiders also have a solid contract with Crosby, in light of the current market. As of last year, the Raiders gave Crosby a new deal that moved him to an annual rate of $35.5 million. It has since moved to $46.5 million.
Currently, the Crosby deal has four years left, at an average of $29 million per year. And it’s highly unlikely he’ll be knocking on anyone’s door for a raise, at least not until he re-establishes himself after a meniscus repair that made the Ravens unwilling to proceed with the trade.
While the Raiders won’t get the 14th overall pick in the 2026 draft or an extra first-round pick in 2027, they’ll keep Crosby. They’ve added several quality players in free agency. Yes, owner Mark Davis will have to re-balance the budget a bit. (He’ll still be able to eat something other than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.)
But the Raiders are keeping their best player. A player who has rediscovered his passion for the franchise.
