Before 2011, first-round draft picks rarely agreed to terms on their rookie deals before the Fourth of July. Nowadays, plenty of them sign before Memorial Day.
On Friday, Titans receiver Carnell Tate, the fourth overall pick in the 2026 draft, agreed to terms on his slotted four-year deal.
Like all first-round picks, it’s fully guaranteed.
The contract pays out $51,134,914, with a $33,649,028 signing bonus.
The value of the first-round deals is driven by the spot in which the player was drafted. There’s not much to negotiate. Which has resulted in more and more rookie deals being negotiated quickly.
Tate’s deal put the second (Jets edge rusher David Bailey), third (Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love) and fourth (Tate) picks under contract. Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the first overall pick, has not yet signed.
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Commanders linebacker Sonny Styles, the seventh overall pick in the draft, most recently wore No. 0 at Ohio State. With cornerback Mike Sainristil wearing that number in Washington, Styles needed something new.
He explained his decision to embrace No. 52 in a Friday session with reporters.
“I’m not really a big number guy,” Styles said. “Like, I wasn’t really big into single digits. I like zero. Mikey has zero. So then, like, I was telling [linebackers] coach [Ken Norton] like when I look in the room [with] London on the wall, London Fletcher, LaVar [Arrington]. I think it was Ken Harvey and Monte Coleman. It was all like 50 numbers. And I was like, ‘Shoot, I’m gonna pick a 50 number.’ And I was thinking about it. You know, I remember growing up watching like Patrick Willis, Ray Lewis. So like, hey, 52 would be cool. And then my dad was like, ‘Hey, five plus two is seven, so that’s your draft pick.’ So I was like, man, that’s cool. It seems pretty cool. So that’s really how I landed on it.”
Given the proximity to Baltimore, Commanders fans will be hoping that Styles performs like Ray Lewis did in his Hall of Fame career with the Ravens.
Twelve years to the month after Johnny Manziel became a first-round pick in the NFL draft, he’ll step into a boxing ring for the first time.
Via Andreas Hale of ESPN, Manziel will fight social-media influencer Bob Menery on May 23, at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
It’s the latest twist in Manziel’s post-football career, at a time when he could still be playing. But he washed out of the NFL after only two seasons with the Browns.
After two seasons out of football, Manziel spent time with a pair of CFL franchises before joining the short-lived AAF in 2019. From 2021 to 2022, he played in the Fan Controlled Football League for the Zappers. Manziel launched the Glory Daze podcast in 2024.
Next, the 33-year-old Manziel will face the 38-year-old Menery in a new venture aimed at grabbing a little attention and cash.
Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson stayed away from the team for two weeks as he sought a trade. He showed up to the Colts’ voluntary work on Monday despite an uncertain future.
Richardson is recovering from a right eye injury.
Coach Shane Steichen addressed Richardson’s future on Friday, although he did not allow much.
“He’s back in the fold right now. That part’s been good,” Steichen said, via James Boyd of TheAthletic.com. “He’s working, going through his fundamentals, details, out there throwing with the guys. And that’s where it’s at right now.”
Richardson, the No. 4 overall pick in 2023, lost the starting job to Daniel Jones last season.
He still wants a trade, but according to Boyd, Richardson will approach his situation with professionalism.
Steichen sidestepped a question about whether Richardson would compete with Riley Leonard, a 2025 sixth-round pick, for the backup job to Jones.
“Right now, we’re in May. We’ll see how it goes, obviously, with all that,” Steichen said. “But [Richardson’s] working. He’s here. He’s in good spirits. He’s cleared to play with the vision stuff, so that part’s good.”
Richardson had a freak pregame accident on Oct. 12 that left him with a fractured orbital bone in his eye.
When it comes to the Steelers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers, the new normal is abnormal.
With no sign that Rodgers will be signing with the Steelers in the immediate future, 93.7 The Fan reported on Thursday morning that Rodgers would be visiting Pittsburgh, with an expectation that he would sign a contract. NFL Network confirmed the visit, but tapped the brakes on a deal being done.
On Friday morning, Steelers G.M. Omar Khan said he doesn’t know where Rodgers is.
Now, Mark Kaboly (Steelers correspondent for The Pat McAfee Show) has shared this observation on Twitter: “From everything I can gather, there is no meeting scheduled or expected between Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers. I’ve reached out to a couple inside the building and nobody has seen him yet. Today is the first day of rookie minicamp. Media will be there on Saturday. Stay tuned. Maybe Rodgers will show later, maybe tomorrow or maybe he won’t.”
That pretty much summarizes the situation with Rodgers. Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. Either way, he won’t be saying anything. And he’ll reserve the right to complain when the media tries to make sense of the nonsensical.
Yes, Rodgers has the right to make decisions on his own timeline. He doesn’t have the right to play games. All too often, it seems as if he is.
The Titans were awarded wide receiver Courtney Jackson off waivers on Friday.
The Giants waived Jackson on Thursday after he signed a futures contract with the team earlier this offseason.
Jackson spent last season on the Seahawks’ practice squad.
The Broncos signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2025.
Jackson has never played a regular-season NFL game.
The Titans also announced they waived receiver Hal Presley in a corresponding move.
The Bengals claimed linebacker Swayze Bozeman off waivers from the Giants, the team announced Friday.
The Bengals also signed undrafted free agent safety Isaiah Nwokobia.
Bozeman is a second-year player out of the University of Southern Mississippi. He entered the league as a college free agent signee of the Chiefs in 2024.
Bozeman has played nine career games for the Chiefs (2024) and Giants (2025), totaling five defensive tackles along with four special teams stops.
Nwokobia is a rookie out of SMU.
The Bills signed second-round cornerback Davison Igbinosun on Friday, the team announced.
He is the seventh of 10 draft picks to sign.
Only fourth-round offensive tackle Jude Bowry, fourth-round wide receiver Skyler Bell and fourth-round Kaleb Elarms-Orr remain unsigned.
The Bills traded up to take Igbinosun with the 62nd overall pick.
Igbinosun spent his freshman season starting at Ole Miss before transferring to Ohio State, where he played three seasons. In his four-year college career, Igbinosun totaled 194 tackles, four interceptions and 27 pass breakups.
But he had 27 penalties in his final two college seasons.
The Chargers announced the signings of five players selected in the 2026 draft.
They now have fourth-round offensive tackle Travis Burke (No. 117), fourth-round safety Genesis Smith (No. 131), fifth-round defensive tackle Nick Barrett (No. 145), sixth-round offensive guard Logan Taylor (No. 202) and sixth-round offensive guard Alex Harkey (No. 206) under contract.
That leaves only first-round linebacker Akheem Mesidor, second-round center Jake Slaughter and fourth-round wide receiver Brenen Thompson unsigned.
The Chargers also waived two players — defensive lineman Josh Fuga and cornerback Jordan Oladokun — and signed 18 undrafted free agents.
The undrafted free agents to sign were Utah State safety Noah Avinger, Utah linebacker Lander Barton, Kansas State tight end Jerand Bradley, Colorado wide receiver Sincere Brown, Virginia defensive lineman Jahmeer Carter, Memphis running back Greg Desrosiers, Syracuse safety Devin Grant, Louisiana State defensive lineman Jacobian Guillory, San Diego State outside linebacker Niles King, Penn State wide receiver Devonte Ross, Georgia Tech cornerback Rodney Shelley, Toledo cornerback Avery Smith, Fresno State center Jacob Spomer, Wyoming tight end Evan Svoboda, Western Michigan outside linebacker Nadame Tucker, Southern Methodist defensive lineman Terry Webb, Florida State cornerback Jeremiah Wilson and Oregon tackle Isaiah World.
The Seahawks are selling. To date, no one is buying.
At least not to the extent that was expected.
Seth Wickersham of ESPN reports, quoting an unnamed team owner, that the market for the team is “soft.”
The powers-that-be now have doubts regarding whether the team price will land on the high side of the expected range of $9 billion to $11 billion. The current thinking, per Wickersham, is that the final number will land slightly above $9 billion.
It’ll still shatter the record of $6.05 billion, set in 2023 by the sale of the Commanders to Josh Harris. But it won’t obliterate it.
For now, the pool of potential buyers is small. One problem, as Wickersham explains it, is that few individuals have the liquid assets to pay 30 percent of $9 billion or more.
The process, per the report, is expected to linger into the 2026 season. Given that current management had to be cajoled (with the threat of a $5 million fine) into moving forward, there’s a chance for potential foot dragging that will look accidental but could at some level be inadvertently deliberate.
