Eagles To Acquire QB Andy Dalton From Panthers
The Eagles are trading a 2027 seventh-round pick to the Panthers in exchange for quarterback Andy Dalton, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Dalton, 38, served as the backup to Bryce Young in Carolina for the last three years. He started one game in 2023 but drew five starts in 2024 with the Panthers having some doubts about their former No. 1 pick. This past season, though, he started only one game with Young putting up the best numbers of his career and establishing himself as the team’s unquestioned starter heading into 2026.
The Panthers signed Kenny Pickett as Young’s new backup last week, making Dalton surplus to requirements in Carolina. The Eagles have their own backup for Jalen Hurts in 2023 sixth-round Tanner McKee, who has impressed when asked to play in the last two years. He has only made two starts with a total of 88 passing attempts in the regular season, though he graded out as one of the NFL’s best passers during the 2025 preseason, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required).
Philadelphia’s move for Dalton could mean that the team is open to trading McKee, who drew interest during roster cut-downs last summer and was mentioned as a potential trade chip this offseason. Teams seeking a young backup they could work to develop into a future starter could inquire after the Stanford product.
In that case, Dalton would take over as Hurts’ backup in the Eagles offense. Hurts has generally been healthy in his career with his absences typically coming as a result of the team locking in its playoff seeding early.
The official terms of the deal have yet to be announced, so the Panthers could be eating some of Dalton’s remaining salary to facilitate the trade. Assuming that is not the case, the Eagles will inherit the final year of the two-year, $8MM extension he signed last February. Dalton is owed $3.9MM in salary ($2MM of which is guaranteed) with a $100K workout bonus and a $4MM cap hit, per OverTheCap.
The Eagles will be Dalton’s sixth NFL team. The longtime Bengals starter enjoyed one-and-done stints with the Cowboys, Bears and Saints. The Panthers gave him a two-year, $10MM deal in 2023 to mentor a to-be-determined rookie — which became Young weeks later — and re-signed him in 2025 (two years, $8MM) despite an awkward changeover involving a car accident. Dalton suffering minor injuries in the accident led to Young’s second chance, and the diminutive QB has kept the Carolina reins since.
One season remains on McKee’s rookie contract. This marks the third straight year the Eagles have traded for a backup. They acquired Pickett from the Steelers in 2024 and made a late-summer Sam Howell acquisition in 2025. It will now be Dalton in place in the Hurts-McKee QB room, as the 16th-year quarterback is setting up to play an age-39 season.
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Dolphins Not Making RB De’Von Achane Available In Trades
A February report indicated neither Jaylen Waddle nor De’Von Achane were available, deeming both core players in Miami. The Dolphins have since moved Waddle, sending the 1,000-yard wide receiver to the Broncos for a package headlined by a first-round pick. Teams are naturally wondering if the rebuilding team’s stance has changed on Achane.
As of mid-March, it has not. The Dolphins are informing interested teams the fourth-year running back is not available, ESPN’s Adam Schefter notes. One season remains on Achane’s rookie contract, and after the team stripped Malik Willis of his top pass catcher, the new QB will be expected to have the speedy running back complementing him.
Achane, 24, is due a $5.68MM base salary in the final year of a third-round rookie deal. The staffers that brought the Texas A&M alum to Miami — Chris Grier, Mike McDaniel — are gone, and the Dolphins have separated from their Waddle-Tua Tagovailoa–Tyreek Hill troika this offseason. The team also cut Bradley Chubb and traded Minkah Fitzpatrick for a second time.
With a second rebuild in seven years in the works, Miami probably will not slam the door on dealing Achane — a valuable piece due to his age and sprinter speed — but it would seemingly take a strong return for a player profiling as an extension candidate.
Before the Dolphins brought in Jeff Hafley and Jon-Eric Sullivan, Achane made it known he was seeking an offseason extension. This year could see pivotal updates on the running back market, with Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs now extension-eligible. Both the Falcons and Lions can buy more time — if they choose to — by exercising the former first-rounders’ fifth-year options, pushing their rookie contracts through 2027. The Dolphins have no such luxury, with Achane a former third-round pick.
Even with a new Miami regime in town, the team needs to pay someone to play alongside Willis. Placeholder options (Tutu Atwell, Jalen Tolbert) are positioned at receiver, with the injury-prone Greg Dulcich at tight end. Achane represents the Dolphins’ clear centerpiece on offense.
When asked about extensions at the Combine, Sullivan targeted summer talks with Achane and select others. Considering the players the Dolphins have dealt, not many extension candidates are on this roster. After finishing the 2024 season with 1,499 scrimmage yards and 12 touchdowns, Achane followed it up with a 1,838-yard, 12-TD 2025. While the latter effort was obscured by Tagovailoa’s descent and steady rumors of staff upheaval, the Dolphins will hope to rely on him — potentially after a big-ticket payday — as Hafley’s HC tenure starts.
Eagles’ Marquise Brown Considered Ravens Reunion
Yesterday, we saw veteran wide receiver Marquise Brown join his fourth NFL team as he heads into the eighth year of his professional career. In an appearance on the Speakeasy talk show with Emmanuel Acho and LeSean McCoy, Brown disclosed that, before he signed with the Eagles, he considered reuniting with the team that drafted him in Baltimore. 
Appearing on the show yesterday for a short interview, Brown was asked what other teams he considered signing with. He explained that, in his second experience in free agency, his agent was the person communicating with any interested teams and that he didn’t get involved until it came down to the few teams that really seemed to want him, based on how much interest they showed his agent. He did mention, though, that he “was really considering going back to Baltimore.”
Of all the wide receivers Baltimore has drafted in its 30-year tenure as the Ravens, only three have eclipsed 1,000 yards receiving in Baltimore. In 1999, they found a fourth-round gem in Brandon Stokley, who would go on to see that success with Peyton Manning in Indianapolis after failing to surpass 360 yards in Baltimore. The team would have to wait another 12 years before finding another 1,000-yard receiver in the draft. In 2011, they drafted Torrey Smith in the second round, and he became their first ever drafted receiver to record 1,000 yards with the team, doing so in his third season. Brown, arriving eight years later, was the fourth first-round wideout in the team’s history and the first to record a 1,000-yard season. Zay Flowers has since joined him in that honor as the Ravens have now seen two of six first-round receivers reach that milestone.
Like Smith, Brown reached that threshold in his third year with the Ravens, but unlike Smith, Brown didn’t get another year with the team after accomplishing the feat. Despite having recorded the Raven’s first 1,000-yard season since 2016, Brown was reportedly unhappy with his usage in Baltimore and asked to be traded. the Ravens paired him with a third-round pick and sent him to Arizona, getting the Cardinals’ first-round pick in return.
Since leaving Baltimore, Brown has failed to build on the success of his 2021 season. He seemed to be on pace to continue progressing in his first year with the Cardinals, amassing 485 yards in just six games, but he would miss the next five games due to injury and struggle to get that production back, ending the year with 709 yards. His second year in Arizona saw him record 574 receiving yards in 14 games. As a free agent, Brown signed with the Chiefs, but a preseason injury would hold him out until the last three weeks of the season. In 2025, he played in 16 games for the first time since he left Baltimore and recorded 587 yards and five touchdowns in a semi-resurgent season in Kansas City.
After four years of failing to reach the heights he reached in Baltimore with Lamar Jackson, one can hardly fault Brown for considering a return to Baltimore. Doing so hints that Brown may now be able to look past the issues he had with his usage in the past, which should benefit him as he heads to Philadelphia, where A.J. Brown has had some similar complaints in recent years. With Jahan Dotson departed in free agency and Brown, perhaps, on his way out the door, as well, Hollywood is set to headline a retooled group of receivers behind WR1 DeVonta Smith.
Annual League Meeting Topics Coming Into Focus
In a week and a half, the NFL will undergo its annual league meeting in Phoenix. Preparations seem to be under discussion in NFL circles because a number of potential meeting topics were reported by the media today. 
For starters, the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Referees Association is due to expire at the end of May. According to ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, the league is doing its homework on the idea of “hiring replacement officials” for the year, in case a new collective bargaining agreement cannot be reached by then. The last time replacement officials were utilized was during a 2012 lockout of officials. Starting in the offseason, it lasted over 100 days, requiring the use of replacement officials for the first three weeks of the season.
While the NFL declined to comment on the matter, Seifert claims that emails detail a plan to set “a list of about 150 mostly small college officials by the end of this weekend.” If the plan moves forward, the replacement officials would “begin onboarding as early as April then attend a four-day clinic in May.” They would then continue training until it becomes time for them to work at training camps, preseason games, and eventually, regular season games, if necessary.
Frustration has reportedly been mounting on both sides as the owners seek methods to improve performance and increase accountability of officials in order to make sure the “highest-performing officials are officiating (the) highest profile games.” The officials, though, want to keep things as they are or even, perhaps, reduce the league’s access to working with game officials.
The NFL also announced today that only two teams proposed resolutions for the 2026 season. One is a proposal from the Browns for “a rule change that would allow NFL teams to trade draft picks five years into the future instead of three.” Cleveland asserts that the change “would lead to a more active trade market and greater roster flexibility.”
The second proposal came from the Steelers, concerning NFL teams’ abilities to contact players during the free agent negotiating period. Pittsburgh’s proposal would make permanent a team’s ability to conduct up to five phone or video calls directly with players on other teams during the two-day free agent negotiating period before the start of the league year, something the NFL allowed on a trial basis this year.
Mark Maske of The Washington Post pointed out that, with these being the only resolutions proposed, that means no team chose to continue trying to ban the tush push and that the Rams opted not to propose anything in relation to the controversial two-point conversion scored against them by the Seahawks in Week 16 last year. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk claims the Rams withdrew their proposals on the topic.
Additionally, touching back on a couple of topics from the start of the offseason, there doesn’t appear to be any continuation of last year’s discussions on revisiting playoff seeding, per Maske. Florio touched on this topic back then, as well, reporting that it is expected to be brought back to the table once/if the regular season actually expands from 17 to 18 games.
Former Bengals, Cowboys LB Logan Wilson Retires
Early this afternoon, linebacker Logan Wilson took to Instagram to bid farewell to his brief NFL career. After only six years of play at the professional level, the 29-year-old defender has announced his retirement. 
Growing up in Wyoming, Wilson was an All-State athlete starting in his sophomore year of high school. By his junior and senior seasons, Wilson was earning All-State honors on offense (WR), defense (S), and special teams (P). Even though he was an All-State athlete, the fact that that state was Wyoming limited the amount of interest he received from colleges. He only received scholarship offers from Weber State and Wyoming and chose to stay in-state with the Cowboys. After redshirting his freshman season, Wilson was a full-time starter as a redshirt freshman and continued in that role for three years after that. His 421 total tackles are the fourth-most in school history.
The Bengals drafted the first-team All-Mountain West linebacker in the third round of the 2020 NFL draft. Though he only started two games as a rookie, he was constantly rotating in, and by the midpoint of the season, he was on the field for over half team’s defensive snaps. By the start of Year 2, Wilson had replaced Josh Bynes as a starting linebacker, and he finished the season as the team’s leading tackler, a feat he would repeat in each of the next two years, earning a four-year, $37.25MM extension. He likely would’ve accomplished the feat for four straight years, but a season-ending knee surgery ended his 2024 campaign after just 11 games.
Injuries had needled Wilson over the course of his NFL career, but that season-ending injury was the first time he had missed more than three weeks in a row. He only ever participated in every game of a season once, in 2023. That year he recorded career highs in total tackles (135), tackles for loss (5), passes defensed (9), and interceptions (4).
In 2025, Wilson started the season as a starter at inside linebacker, but as the team started limiting his time and giving more opportunities to Clemson fourth-round rookie Barrett Carter, Wilson requested a trade, and Cincinnati moved him to the Cowboys to honor that request, receiving just a seventh-round pick in the process. While he didn’t regain a starting role in Dallas, he was able to retain a decent rotation. In the aftermath of the season, the Cowboys waived Wilson to free up a considerable amount of cap space from the remaining years of his extension.
Over the course of his brief career, Wilson proved to be an effective, versatile linebacker when healthy. He finishes his NFL career with 565 total tackles, 11 interceptions, 26 passes defensed, seven forced fumbles, 5.5 sacks, 19 tackles for loss, and 18 quarterback hits. In his retirement post, Wilson expressed thanks for getting to live out his NFL dream as a kid from Wyoming.
Minor NFL Transactions: 3/18/26
Wednesday’s minor transactions from around the league:
Arizona Cardinals
- Signed: TE Teagan Quitoriano
Chicago Bears
- Signed: DT James Lynch
Cleveland Browns
- Re-signed: OLB Julian Okwara
- Signed: S Daniel Thomas
Denver Broncos
- Signed: S Tycen Anderson
San Francisco 49ers
- Re-signed: DE Sam Okuayinonu
Seattle Seahawks
- Re-signed: WR Cody White
Okwara returns to Cleveland after spending the entire 2025 season on the practice squad. The former third-round pick has 10.0 sacks in his six years of NFL play with five coming in his sophomore campaign. The addition of Thomas provides the Browns with a veteran special teams contributor.
The 49ers are bringing back Okuayinonu after the fourth-year defender filled in for 12 starts and two postseason starts with San Francisco last year. He’s recorded three sacks in each of the past two years for the 49ers.
Browns To Add DE A.J. Epenesa, WR Tylan Wallace
A.J. Epenesa‘s time in Buffalo is over, but the veteran defensive end will not be traveling far for his next NFL gig. The Browns are bringing in the former second-round pick.
Cleveland is adding Epenesa on a one-year deal worth up to $5MM, ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweets. With the Bills changing their defensive scheme, Epenesa will wrap his tenure at six seasons.
Buffalo is shifting to a 3-4 scheme under new DC Jim Leonhard, and Epenesa will stay in a 4-3 alignment and work as a complementary presence around the game’s top pass rusher. The Browns already have Alex Wright in place as Myles Garrett‘s top sidekick, but Epenesa is no slouch in the sack department. He recorded 19 sacks from 2022-24. The Bills signed Bradley Chubb last week and have Michael Hoecht coming back from injury.
The Bills had re-signed Epenesa on a two-year, $12MM deal in 2024. The Iowa alum played out that contract but did not have a good platform year this time around. The rotational rusher only recorded 2.5 sacks in 15 games. Epenesa did intercept two passes, however, matching his total from 2023.
Although Epenesa’s sack count was down, the Bills still used him on 47% of their defensive snaps. Working as the top rusher off the bench behind starters Gregory Rousseau and Joey Bosa, Epenesa settled back into a second-string role after 13 2024 starts. The longtime Rousseau sidekick played a career-high 612 defensive snaps in 2024, recording a safety and setting a new career-best mark with eight tackles for loss.
Wright, 25, does not have a six-sack season yet despite playing opposite Garrett. The Browns extended the ex-Jim Schwartz piece on a three-year, $33MM deal. At a price that will come in shy of $5MM, Epenesa (27) represents what looks like a good value bet for Cleveland.
The team is also signing wide receiver/return man Tylan Wallace, cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot reports. Wallace spent his entire five-year career in Baltimore, and he will follow ex-Ravens OC Todd Monken to Cleveland.
Wallace played out a one-year, $2.1MM Ravens pact. While Wallace only has 305 receiving yards in five seasons, he has made a bigger impact as a return man. The former fourth-round pick returned a punt for a touchdown in 2023. Monken presumably has a bigger role for Wallace in mind — for a Browns team with serious WR questions beyond Jerry Jeudy — after the five-year vet returned only 20 combined kicks and punts in Baltimore.
Steelers Acquire, Extend WR Michael Pittman Jr.
MARCH 18: The official numbers on the Pittman extension emerged Wednesday, and the Steelers will have the former 1,000-yard pass catcher on a considerable discount compared to where he was with the Colts. Pittman is tied to a two-year, $35MM Pittsburgh deal, according to OverTheCap. It comes with $24MM guaranteed at signing. No guarantees are in place beyond 2026.
Previously tied to a three-year, $72MM pact, Pittman will receive his guarantee in the form of a signing bonus and a guaranteed $1.3MM 2026 base salary. At $17.5MM per year, the 6-foot-4 receiver matches Jerry Jeudy and Wan’Dale Robinson per year; the trio are tied for 23rd among wideout AAV.
MARCH 9, 7:24pm: Pittsburgh is sending a sixth-round pick for Pittman and a seventh, per the Pat McAfee Show‘s Mark Kaboly. This amounts to a salary dump by a Colts team that needed money for the Pierce payday and Jones’ tag.
Our Colts Offseason Outlook broached the Pierce-for-Pittman swap on the team’s payroll, and the club found a taker. The Steelers have their Metcalf complementary piece. Pittman, the first Colt to be franchise-tagged since McAfee (2013), is heading into an age-29 season.
11:52am: The Colts retained wide receiver Alec Pierce with a mega-deal on Monday, but they will say goodbye to another key pass catcher. The team has agreed to trade Michael Pittman Jr. to the Steelers, Dianna Russini of The Athletic reports. The deal will be a late-round pick swap, per Tom Pelissero of NFL Network.
The Steelers are awarding Pittman a three-year, $59MM extension, according to Mike Garafolo of NFL Network. The 28-year-old otherwise would have played out the last season of his contract in 2026.
Days after the Colts placed the $37.83MM transition tag on quarterback Daniel Jones, Pierce stayed in place on a four-year, $116MM agreement. That left the Colts in need of cap space. By saying goodbye to Pittman, they will save $24MM at the cost of $5MM in dead money.
A consistently strong contributor since the Colts grabbed him in Round 2 of the 2020 draft, Pittman has reached 80 catches in four of his six seasons. He has also exceeded 1,000 yards twice. While 2025 was a down year in terms of yards per catch (9.8), Pittman still hauled in 80 passes for 784 yards and a personal-best seven touchdowns. He played in all 17 games for the second time in his career. Other than a 13-game rookie year, Pittman has never missed more than one contest in a season.
Although the Steelers do not have an established starting quarterback in place, expectations are that Aaron Rodgers will eventually re-sign. Rodgers quarterbacked the Steelers to 10 wins and an AFC North title last season, but the team lacked weapons at receiver after D.K. Metcalf. While Metcalf finished with 850 yards in 15 games, no other Steeler hit 500. Second receiver Calvin Austin, now a free agent, totaled 31 catches for 372 yards in 14 games. Meanwhile, no one from the Roman Wilson/Adam Thielen/Marquez Valdes-Scantling group posed much of a threat.
Regardless of who is under center for Pittsburgh in 2026, he should benefit from Pittman’s presence. The 6-foot-4, 223-pounder will give the Steelers a second proven wideout to complement Metcalf.
Lions To Sign WR Greg Dortch
Greg Dortch will complete a quick reunion with Drew Petzing. The new Lions offensive coordinator will once again coach his former Cardinals slot charge.
Detroit hosted Dortch on a Wednesday visit, per NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo, and NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero note the meeting will lead to a quick signing. It’s a one-year deal.
Contributing as a receiver and both as a kick and punt returner, Dortch will vie for a roster spot with Petzing’s new team. The Cardinals tendered Dortch as an RFA last year ($3.26MM) but will let him walk now that Mike LaFleur‘s in charge.
Operating as a diminutive inside receiver under Kliff Kingsbury and then Petzing in Arizona, Dortch saw time for the Cardinals from 2021-25. Formerly a Jets UDFA, Dortch journeyed to the Rams, Panthers and Falcons before getting a shot in the desert. The Cardinals deployed two 5-foot-7 wideouts — in Dortch and Rondale Moore — from 2021-23, and both enjoyed moments as auxiliary playmakers around the likes of DeAndre Hopkins, Trey McBride and Michael Wilson.
Playing in two 2019 games but not seeing any action in 2020, Dortch carved out a Cardinals role in 2022 and logged snap shares from 35-45% on offense over the next four seasons. A veteran of PFR’s Minor NFL Transactions posts, Dortch is still just 27 (28 in May). His best season came under Kingsbury in 2022 (52 receptions, 467 yards), but the Cards kept him around as they transitioned to Petzing’s offense.
Dortch did combine for six touchdown receptions from 2024-25, but he averaged fewer than 10 yards per catch — down to a paltry 7.1 last season — as Arizona’s offense became increasingly unreliable. The Wake Forest alum missed five games last season, being placed on IR in early December. A steadier presence as a return man, Dortch was the Cardinals’ primary kick returner last season. He also served as a regular Arizona punt-return option from 2022-25, though the dual-threat specialist does not have a return TD in his career.
The Lions have starters Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams signed to extensions, and three years remain on Isaac TeSlaa‘s rookie contract. The team also brought back practice squad mainstay Tom Kennedy last week.