The Titans are taking a look at a veteran defensive player.
Per Mike Garafolo of NFL Network, safety Ifeatu Melifonwu worked out for Tennessee on Tuesday.
Melifonwu, 27, previously worked out for the Seahawks earlier this month.
Melifonwu spent last season with the Dolphins after playing out his rookie contract with the Lions. He appeared in1 6 games with eight starts for Miami, recording 53 total tackles, an interception, and a sack.
A third-round pick in 2021, Melifonwu has appeared in a total of 53 games with 22 starts. He’s recorded 5.5 career sacks along with 14 passes defensed, and three interceptions.
Kyle Juszczyk says the 49ers don’t need to win the offseason.
Juszczyk knows the Seahawks are the defending Super Bowl champions and the Rams are the talk of the NFL offseason, and if that means the 49ers are getting overlooked in the NFC West, Juszczyk said he’ll gladly accept that.
“We feel great about where our team is,” Juszczyk told NFL Media. “The fact that we won 13 games last season with all that we had to deal with, I think that’s easy to forget. And rightfully so. The Seahawks won a Super Bowl, the Rams had a great season, they had some great additions in the offseason, so I can understand why that is the case. But I think we feel great about where we’re at. I love our squad. I think that we have only improved. Guys are getting healthy. We added Mike Evans and Osa [Odighizuwa] on defense, which I think both of those guys are going to make such an impact. I think we’re sitting in a good spot. If people want to forget about us, that’s fantastic. That’s a good place to be sometimes.”
The 49ers have a strong team heading into 2026, but in the NFC West odds they’re +305 long shots, well behind the favored Rams (+100) and the defending champion Seahawks (+205). The 49ers will need to surprise some people to win the division. Juszczyk likes the sound of that.
In the never ending modern news cycle, the things that don’t happen often don’t get noticed. Case in point — the Seahawks haven’t, and apparently won’t be, visiting the White House in recognition of their win in Super Bowl LX.
There has been no announcement, by the team or by the White House. But with the offseason program over and the players scattered until training camp opens, the natural window has closed on the team from Seattle, Washington to go to Washington, D.C..
In the days after the Super Bowl, a question emerged as to whether the Seahawks would go. At the time, the team said nothing had been offered or decided. At the Scouting Combine, coach Mike Macdonald said that the team has yet to get an invitation and that, if one comes, they’ll address it.
“We’re going to get an invite, right?” Macdonald said at the time. “That’s how it works? Not really sure how it works.”
Since then, there has been no indication that an invitation was extended, or that it was rejected. The non-war war in Iran likely was a factor, but the White House has generally continued to take care of its usual public business (including a visit by the NCAA football champions, the Indiana Hoosiers).
When the Seahawks won the Super Bowl to cap the 2013 season, they visited the White House on May 21.
It’s possible that, this time around, backchannel discussions regarding, for instance, the number of players who would attend the event, resulted in no invitation being extended. It’s also possible that the White House wanted to avoid the indignity of having an invitation rejected (or sparsely attended) and the Seahawks didn’t want to be the subject of a 3:00 a.m. social-media barrage, which also would have included a longwinded complaint about the kickoff formation.
But there’s still time. The Seahawks play the Commanders at FedEx Field on Sunday, September 27. So they’ll be in the area. Whether they’ll want to take a look in the rearview mirror after playing two games in the 2026 regular season remains to be seen.
If they get invited. And if they accept.
The new Patrick Mahomes contract covers eight seasons and averages, from signing, a payout of $63.093 million per year. That pushes the market to unprecedented heights. And it brings into focus the next wave of quarterback deals.
So let’s take a look at the quarterbacks who’ll use the Mahomes contract as a key data point for ongoing or upcoming negotiations.
Lamar Jackson, Ravens.
Jackson has wanted a new deal for more than a year. His current contract averaged $52.5 million per year from signing. At the time it was finalized, he was the highest paid player in the league. He has now slid down to the bottom of the top 10. Mahomes getting to $63.09 million, especially while still recovering from a torn ACL, will only strengthen Lamar’s resolve.
Jackson currently has $104 million remaining on his current contract, over the next two years. With a no-tag clause, he can kick the can through the next two seasons and become an unrestricted free agent. It gives him significant leverage, and Mahomes’s contract likely nudges Lamar’s reasonable expectations from at least $60.1 million per year (based on Dak Prescott’s latest deal) to at least $63.1 million annually.
Joe Burrow, Bengals.
In 2023, after his first three NFL seasons, Burrow agreed to a seven-year deal with an average from signing of $44.28 million per year and a new-money average of $55 million. He has four years left with a total payout of $163.539 million, an average of $40.88 million.
His recent restructuring was a cap-creation device, with no new money. The Bengals, who are extremely careful with money, may not be inclined to tear up the current deal and replace it with a new contract.
For his part, Burrow may not be inclined to extend his commitment to the team. His discontent after three straight non-playoff seasons has become more obvious. As he enters his seventh season in Cincinnati, Burrow could be thinking about reaching the same conclusion Carson Palmer did after his eighth.
Baker Mayfield, Buccaneers.
He has said talks on a deal that would extend his $33.3 million per year contract are nowhere close to where he thought they’d be. The Buccaneers could tag him in 2027, or they could let him hit the open market.
Some think the Bucs wouldn’t use the franchise tag; with a 2026 cap number of $39.975 million, Mayfield’s 2027 franchise tender would be at least $47.97 million. There’s a sense in some circles that the Bucs believe they’ll ultimately offer him more than anyone would in free agency, if a new deal isn’t done before Mayfield’s self-imposed deadline of the start of training camp.
C.J. Stroud.
The Texans repeatedly have proclaimed that he’s their guy. But they have yet to do for him what they’d done for cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. and defensive end Will Anderson — sign the first-round pick to a new deal before his fourth season.
The challenge at this point comes from putting a number on his second contract. There’s a broad range when it comes to veteran quarterback pay. Where would Stroud fit?
Currently, the number would be lower than it could be for Stroud, if he has a strong fourth season. Since the Texans realize that, at this point, they’d be only bidding against themselves, there’s no reason to rush the process.
Caleb Williams, Bears.
The first overall pick in the 2024 draft becomes eligible for a new deal after the 2026 regular season. And Williams has been very focused on the business realities of the NFL, from even before he was drafted.
When the time comes for Williams to get a new deal, the Mahomes number will drive the discussion. Especially if Williams continues to be on a trajectory that could put him among the top four or five quarterbacks in football.
We’ve already heard talk of Williams having expectations that would be more than eye-popping. And we also expect that Williams will make it known that he wants his contract not after the 2026 postseason ends, but promptly upon the opening of the window for a new deal after the Bears face the Vikings in Week 18.
Why carry the injury risk into the 2026 postseason? No quarterback on his rookie deal has tried to do that, even though the CBA wrinkle has been hiding in plain sight since 2011.
Jayden Daniels, Commanders.
Like Williams, Daniels becomes eligible for a new deal after the 2026 regular season. His main goal should be to reestablish himself after a disappointing and injury-plagued second season, during which he played only seven of 17 games.
If Daniels returns to his rookie form, he’ll be joining Williams as a quarterback looking for a second contract.
Drake Maye, Patriots.
The player who finished second in the MVP voting to cap his second season also has his window open after the 2026 regular season. And the Patriots will be hoping that, like Tom Brady before him, Maye will be less inclined to break the bank and more inclined to ensure that there will be cap space to have a quality team around him.
Brady, who entered the league as the 199th overall pick, had naturally lower expectations early in his career. Maye, the third overall pick who was denied the commensurate reward due to the rookie wage scale, may not be as charitable as Brady was.
Bo Nix, Broncos.
Nix’s window likewise opens after the 2026 regular season. He’ll need to show he has fully recovered from the foot injury suffered late in the AFC playoff win over the Bills. And he’ll need to do even more in Sean Payton’s offense to unlock a major deal.
Regardless, there’s a new high bar — and his contemporaries from the 2024 draft could add more data points.
That raises another question, as to Williams, Daniels, Maye, and Nix. Who goes first? There will be a competition among the agents to emerge with the best deal. This could prompt some of them to wait until the others jump in the pool first.
Sam Darnold, Seahawks.
Darnold’s three-year, $100.5 million contract from 2025 was structured to give the Seahawks an escape hatch after one year. It wasn’t structured to force the team back to the table if Darnold leads the team to a Super Bowl win.
With $27.5 million in base pay and up to $5 million in available incentives, Darnold would be justified to seek a new deal. The Seahawks may want to wait until 2027.
Regardless, Mahomes’s new contract will be a factor, whenever it’s time to sit down and work out a new contract.
The reality of “voluntary” offseason workouts in the NFL is that they’re only voluntary for the established players. The majority of the players on the 90-man offseason roster are just trying to impress the team enough to make the 53-man regular-season roster, and they attend all the offseason workouts because they know they’re going to get cut if they don’t do everything in their power to make a good impression.
But when those veteran, established players with guaranteed contracts who know they won’t get cut choose to participate in voluntary offseason work, that can be a good sign for the culture the team is building. And that’s what Seahawks defensive tackle Leonard Williams says is happening in Seattle’s offseason program.
Williams said that there’s no sign of complacency on the defending Super Bowl champions, and the players who have already proven they belong are the ones showing the young guys what hard work in the offseason is all about.
“I feel like it’s been great,” Williams said, via ESPN. “It’s been great attendance from the leaders, from the older guys. Young guys have been working hard, trying to be sponges of the game and learn as much as possible. To me, I really just see our culture elevate to another level. I feel like last year we started putting the mix together, all the ingredients and all that type of stuff. This year, you really see it boiling and becoming more just of a foundation. To me, the culture is the biggest thing that we need here. Guys are going to come and go . . . I feel like if we have a culture and foundation like that, we’ll always be a winning team.”
That’s the kind of commitment needed in Seattle, where Williams has said there’s a little extra motivation for the defending champions, knowing the division rival Rams are considered the favorites this season. The Seahawks are eager to put in the work it takes to repeat.
