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.
Chiefs Clips
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 Chiefs have struck a deal to hold onto linebacker Jack Cochrane.
They announced that they have re-signed Cochrane on Friday. No terms of the new contract have been announced.
Cochrane joined the Chiefs as an undrafted free agent in 2022. He has missed four regular season games since joining the team and has been a core special teams player throughout his time in Kansas City.
Cochrane has 62 tackles, an interception and a fumble recovery in his 64 regular season appearances. He has one tackle in seven postseason appearances, but missed the playoffs after the 2024 season while on injured reserve.
Philadelphia has added a running back.
The Eagles announced on Thursday that they’ve agreed to terms on a one-year deal with Dameon Pierce.
Pierce, 25, was most recently with the Chiefs in 2025, appearing in one game for the club. He had signed with Kansas City off of Houston’s practice squad, where he’d previously spent all of his career.
The Texans selected Pierce in the fourth round of the 2022 draft. He appeared in 42 games with 20 starts for the club, rushing for 1,674 yards and eight touchdowns. He also caught 45 passes for 268 yards with one TD.
Pierce’s best season came in 2022 as a rookie, as he totaled 1,104 yards from scrimmage with five total touchdowns.
As the details regarding many of the free-agent contracts made their way to the light of day last week, one deal was absent.
We’ve now gotten our eyes on the full base numbers of the three-year contract signed by Super Bowl LX MVP Kenneth Walker III.
Here are the terms of Walker’s new deal with the Chiefs:
1. Signing bonus: $13 million.
2. 2026 base salary: $1.215 million, fully guaranteed.
3. 2026 workout bonus: $135,000, fully guaranteed but must be earned.
4. 2027 base salary: $14.1 million, fully guaranteed.
5. 2027 workout bonus: $250,000, fully guaranteed but must be earned.
6. 2028 base salary: $14.1 million.
7. 2028 workout bonus: $250,000.
The deal has a base value of $43.05 million. That translates to an average of $14.35 million.
Coincidentally, or not, the running back franchise tag for 2026 was $14.293 million. The Seahawks decided not to apply it.
The Chiefs have fully guaranteed Walker $28.7 million over the first two years, an average of $14.35 million. With no guarantees for 2028, it’s a two-year deal with a team option for 2028.
While not at the top of the tailback market (Saquon Barkley at $20.6 million), it puts Walker not far behind Derrick Henry ($15 million APY) and ahead of Jonathan Taylor ($14 million APY).
That’s a very good deal for a running back who missed 10 games over his first three seasons and who rushed for a career-high of 1,050 yards as a rookie. The investment suggests that the Chiefs plan to use him heavily; last year, they paid only $1.5 million to Kareem Hunt and $1.12 million to Isiah Pacheco.
Either way, Walker will get $14.35 million in cash for each of the next two years, with every penny guaranteed. It speaks to a level of involvement in the offense that the starting running back usually doesn’t have in Kansas City.
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.
The Colts made a veteran addition to their defensive line group on Tuesday.
They announced the signing of defensive tackle Jerry Tillery. The team did not announce the terms of the contract.
Tillery spent the 2025 season with the Chiefs. He played in every game and started three times while picking up 20 tackles, 1.5 sacks and a fumble recovery.
The Chargers selected Tillery in the first round in 2019 and he remained with the team until being waived in November 2022. He was claimed by the Raiders and then moved on to the Vikings in 2024.
Tillery had 86 tackles, 12.5 sacks, four forced fumbles, and two fumble recoveries in 96 appearances across those stops.
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.
The Eagles are making an addition to their receiving corps.
Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, who has spent the last two seasons with the Chiefs, has agreed to a one-year deal with the Eagles, according to Jordan Schultz.
Philadelphia’s receiving corps has been scrutinized all offseason amid talk that wide receiver A.J. Brown could be traded. That hasn’t happened yet, but if it does, the Eagles will be glad they’ve added depth with Hollywood Brown.
Last season with the Chiefs, Hollywood Brown played in 16 games and caught 49 passes for 587 yards and five touchdowns.
Originally a 2019 first-round pick of the Ravens, Brown’s best season came in 2021, when he caught 91 passes for 1,008 yards. The following offseason the Ravens traded him to the Cardinals, but in two years in Arizona he never had the same kind of impact, and in his two years in Kansas City he had even less of an impact.
Now the Eagles will hope Hollywood can make an impact in Philadelphia. Especially if he’s replacing A.J. Brown.
Cornerback Nahshon Wright’s play with the Bears during the 2025 season landed him a contract with the Jets and it earned him the most performance-based pay in the league for last year as well.
The NFL announced that Wright earned more than $1.44 million in performance-based pay. The bonus more than doubles Wright’s base salary for the season.
Wright signed with the Bears after being released by the Vikings last April. He was named to the Pro Bowl after recording 80 tackles, five interceptions, two forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries during the regular season.
The performance-based pay fund is part of the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement to compensate all players based on a formula encompassing their playing time and salary. It paid out more than $542 million for the 2025 season.
Browns safety Ronnie Hickman earned over $1.293 million for second place and tackle Elijah Wilkinson earned over $1.272 million for his work with the Falcons. Wilkinson has since signed with the Cardinals.
Panthers safety Nick Scott, former Commanders guard Chris Paul, Ravens guard Andrew Vorhees, Vikings defensive end Jalen Redmond, Steelers guard Mason McCormick, Chiefs defensive back Chamarri Conner, and Patriots safety Craig Woodson make up the rest of the top 10 recipients of performance-based pay for 2025.
