Offseason Outlook: Minnesota Vikings
One year ago, the Vikings found themselves at a crossroads. J.J. McCarthy was coming off a rookie season spent entirely in recovery, while Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones approached free agency.
Both Darnold and Jones wound up landing starting positions elsewhere on the open market. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was not entirely averse to keeping one of the two veterans in place, but he and the Vikings were ultimately prepared to hand the reins over to McCarthy. On every front – the play by Jones on an impressive Colts team prior to his Achilles tear, Darnold’s contribution to the Super Bowl champion Seahawks and McCarthy’s struggles – that decision backfired.
Adofo-Mensah is now out of the picture, while Minnesota faces the unenviable task of finding a starting-caliber passer amidst a challenging cap situation. The team’s offense will have a high floor if the right one can be acquired, and another year of strong defensive play should be expected in 2026. But the central question in the Vikings’ case remains unanswered on the eve of the new league year.
Coaching/front office:
- Fired GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah; Rob Brzezinski in place on interim basis
- Extended defensive coordinator Brian Flores
- Hired Frank Smith as assistant head coach, replacing Mike Pettine
- TEs coach Brian Angelichino became Steelers’ OC
- Defensive pass-game coordinator Daronte Jones joined Commanders as DC
- Added Matt Thomas to front office
Hired during the 2022 offseason, Adofo-Mensah joined the Vikings at the same time as head coach Kevin O’Connell. The latter’s reputation has steadily gained steam over time, but that was not the case regarding Minnesota’s front office leader.
Offseason Outlook: San Francisco 49ers
After finishing their 2024 campaign 6-11 due to a litany of injuries to impact players, the aim of the 49ers' offseason last year was two-fold: 1) get healthy and 2) build depth. A number of free agency departures made this task even more difficult. Ultimately, injuries reared their ugly head again in 2025, and though San Francisco fared better this time around, its season still came to an early end with several key contributors absent.
As a result, this year's offseason will likely have a similar aim. The team has players who need to get healthy enough to contribute again in 2026 and enough cap space to continue improving in an attempt to get back to the Super Bowl. All in all, this will be an offseason of simply taking care of business as the 49ers look to stay inside a championship window that they have not quite been able to deliver on yet. With two Super Bowl losses and two conference championship losses in the past seven years, San Francisco will continue working to get over that hump.
Coaching/front office:
- Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh hired as Titans' HC
- Hired Raheem Morris as DC replacement
- Assistant head coach on defense Gus Bradley became Titans' DC
- Run-game coordinator/tight ends coach Brian Fleury became Seahawks' OC
- Offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak withdrew from HC searches
- Hired Matt Eberflus as assistant head coach of defense
- Hired Jerry Gray as defensive backs coach
- Added Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to front office
While a change at defensive coordinator seems like it has potential to shake things up in the Bay Area, this is business as usual for the 49ers defense. Dating back to 2022, San Francisco has played each season with a different DC. Yet, aside from an injury-riddled 2024 campaign, the unit has routinely been among the best in the NFL.
Patriots Have Most Interest In Trading For A.J. Brown
It increasingly seems like an A.J. Brown trade could come together. Despite the financial implications of such a deal, the Eagles seem motivated to move the 28-year-old, though it will likely take a significant offer to make it worth their while.
The Patriots are the “most interested” in trading for Brown, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. The Chargers have also been linked to a deal, but the presence of Mike Vrabel (and the lack of a star wideout) in New England make it a logical destination. Stefon Diggs was the first Patriot to record 1,000 receiving yards in a season since Julian Edelman in 2019, and he will not be around next year.
New England’s current receiver room is comprised of veteran Mack Hollins, 2023 draftees Kayshon Boutte and Demario Douglas, and last year’s rookies, Kyle Williams and Efton Chism. The first three had solid 2025 campaigns but only combined for 110 catches and 1,548 receiving yards, while Williams and Chism both made a few plays downfield but did little beyond that.
Hollins offers a steady floor but a low ceiling. Boutte and Douglas both showed signs of development with career-best efficiency metrics. And Williams and Chism could certainly become more consistent contributors. But a team hoping to avoid a Super Bowl hangover needs to be proactive to do so. Rather than waiting until the summer (or later) to upgrade their receiving corps, trading for Brown now would allow the Patriots to take a ‘best player available’ approach to April’s draft.
It would also reunite Brown with Vrabel, which could alleviate some of the locker room concerns with acquiring the infamously expressive wideout. He would also replace Diggs as a proven, high-end veteran target for Drake Maye. The two have similar pedigrees, but Brown is four years younger with better statistics across the last three years.
Meeting the Eagles’ reported asking price of first- and second-round picks is doable for the Patriots. They can be more willing to move draft capital for veterans while Maye and other key players at expensive positions are on rookie deals.
Philadelphia will still have to figure out a way to accommodate the net decrease in cap space resulting from dealing Brown, but both sides seem ready to move on, and, as a result, the Patriots seem ready to move in.
QB Aaron Rodgers’ Steelers Decision Not Imminent
The Steelers’ 2025 season ended with a bit of a whimper. Losing on a Week 17 trip to Cleveland to keep the Ravens in the AFC North race then beating their division rival and moving on to the playoffs by means of a missed 44-yard field goal attempt at the buzzer, Pittsburgh’s flame finally went out at the hands of a stifling Texans defense that held them to six points at home. The questions immediately turned to what direction was the team heading in. 
Since Ben Roethlisberger‘s final season in 2021, the quarterback carousel in Pittsburgh has failed to set up the future of the franchise. Their first attempts post-Roethlisberger were to set up that future by drafting first-round Pitt-product Kenny Pickett, but a three-way battle that included former first-round pick Mitchell Trubisky and Steelers backup Mason Rudolph failed to produce a winner over time. So in 2024, the team abandoned the develop plan and jumped on the pro scouting train, signing veteran Russell Wilson and trading for Justin Fields.
That combination seemed to be working for the franchise, until it didn’t. With Wilson starting the season injured, Fields led the team to a 4-2 start, and when Wilson took over, Pittsburgh won six of its next seven games. The season came crashing down, though, as the Steelers’ limped into the playoffs on a four-game losing streak before losing their first-round playoff game for their fifth-playoff trip in a row. The team stuck with the free agent route last year but moved on from Wilson in favor of veteran quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The Steelers 2025-pursuit of Rodgers was a long, drawn-out process. Over the course of four months, Rodgers casually moved through the headlines, mulling retirement and weighing offers from this team or that team. As other franchises grew impatient or began to see the writing on the wall, that writing pointed closer and closer to Minnesota or Pittsburgh, but despite a couple of efforts from the team on different occasions to get some clarity, an answer didn’t officially come until early June, forcing the Steelers to maneuver much of the offseason, including the draft and free agency, without a concrete plan on who was playing quarterback.
So after the 2025 season ended on a bit of a downward trajectory, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Rodgers would be mulling over his future again, and once the team moved on from long-time head coach Mike Tomlin, it seemed impossible that Rodgers was long for Pittsburgh. That was, until the Steelers replaced Tomlin with Rodgers’ head coach of 13 years in Green Bay, Mike McCarthy. All of the sudden, the signs were pointing right back to Pittsburgh for Rodgers, but ever the patient customer, Rodgers has refused to say anything definitive on the matter.
During a recent appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, Rodgers provided sound bites that conveyed little urgency or imminency. “We’re sitting here. It’s March 4th. Free agency starts in a week,” he dictated. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with my wife…just been laying low…But I’ve talked to (McCarthy), I’ve talked to (general manager Omar Khan). There’s been no deadline that’s been put in front of me. There’s been no contract offer or anything, so there’s nothing that I’m having to debate between.
“I’m a free agent,” he concluded. “And, again, I’m enjoying time with my wife and enjoying this part of the offseason, and I think there’s conversations to be had down the line, but right now, there hasn’t been any progressive conversations.”
In one of his many recent interviews, Khan also spoke on the situation, per Mark Kaboly, a correspondent for The Pat McAfee Show. “I mean, I don’t really want to say it has to be done by (free agency),” Khan explained. “You know, we’d like to have an idea, but it’s just, it isn’t going to go like it did last year…He knows how we feel, and I think we know how he feels about us. It was a good experience for both sides.”
That doesn’t sound entirely like two sides on the same page. It sounds more as if the Steelers are pretty itchy to know what their situation is going to be moving forward but don’t want to pressure Rodgers. Mike DeFabo of The Athletic asserts that team is working under the assumption that “Rodgers is going to return for 2026, but until he gives them a definitive answer, they can’t speak in certain terms.” He adds that Pittsburgh believes it will “get an answer from Rodgers in the next few weeks,” which could mean a lot of things.
Part of the reason the Steelers are eager to know their situation is so they can address other contract issues with confidence in what their numbers are going to look like. Particularly, DeFabo mentions that the Steelers are hoping to secure two of the team’s premier pass rushers alongside T.J. Watt. Khan recently expressed his desire for the team to reach an extension agreement with outside linebacker Nick Herbig. Two issues arise from this desire. First, Herbig may not want to sign an extension just yet. He may be interested in betting on himself to continue improving his output each season in the hopes of really cashing in next year.
The second issue stems from 2023’s extension of fellow outside linebacker Alex Highsmith. The prevailing thought has been that it wouldn’t be practical for the Steelers to commit that much cap space to Herbig, Highsmith, and Watt, and that someone would end up on the outside looking in, but Khan’s response to notions that he couldn’t extend Herbig while retaining Highsmith was simply that “you can’t ever have enough (edge rushers).” This is likely why the Steelers are working to extend Herbig now, making it more feasible to stomach all three contracts. It will be interesting to see if Pittsburgh can land on a deal that sufficiently satisfies Herbig without breaking the bank.
RFA/ERFA Tender Decisions: 3/7/26
Here are Saturday’s tender decisions:
RFAs
Non-tendered:
- Broncos: DL Matt Henningsen
- Chiefs: OL Mike Caliendo
Henningsen played a rotational role on defense in 2024 and ’25 for Denver. Caliendo, meanwhile, totaled 42 appearances and seven starts across three years in Kansas City. Both players are now on course to reach free agency next week unless they elect to re-sign with their respective teams in the immediate future.
Minor NFL Transactions: 3/7/26
Saturday’s lone minor move in the NFL:
Kansas City Chiefs
- Re-signed: LS James Winchester
Winchester has been in place with Kansas City since 2015, and his career will stretch into at least a 12th campaign. He has agreed to a one-year deal for the offseason year in a row. Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports the pact is worth $1.75MM and is fully guaranteed. That ensures Winchester, who will turn 36 this summer and has yet to miss a game in his career, will remain the league’s highest-paid long snapper.
Vikings Work Out Several Restructures
Until recently, the Vikings were on track to be well over the 2026 salary cap. That has produced a number of cost-shedding moves over the course of this week, including several restructures. 
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T.J. Hockenson has agreed to a contract adjustment, Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport of NFL Network report. This move will free up roughly $5MM in cap space. Prior to the restructure, Hockenson was due to carry a cap charge of $21.3MM in 2026, the highest in the league among tight ends.
The two-time Pro Bowler has struggled to regain his previous form since suffering a major knee injury in 2023. As a result, Hockenson’s cap figure would have been a sore spot had it remained intact. Instead, he will look to rebound in 2026. Hockenson was originally under contract through 2027, but Pelissero notes the final year of his deal has been removed through this arrangement. He is now on course for free agency next spring.
Minnesota has also worked out simple restructures in the case of wideout Justin Jefferson and left tackle Christian Darrisaw, per Pelissero. That process consists of converting base salaries into signing bonus to create immediate cap space. Over $27MM in breathing space for 2026 has been generated by those moves. Given their ages and importance to Minnesota’s offense, Jefferson and Darrisaw loomed as obvious candidates for restructures. Their respective deals run through 2028 and ’29, leaving plenty of time for future adjustments if needed.
Cornerback Byron Murphy‘s deal has been restructured as well, as detailed by Ben Goessling of the Minnesota Star Tribune. Roughly $11MM in savings have been generated in his case as a result. Murphy remained in place with the Vikings on a three-year, $54MM pact last offseason. His cap charge is now on track to spike in 2027, but there is no danger of a release taking place before then.
A number of veterans will not be in place for the Vikings once the 2026 season begins. Defensive linemen Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen as well as running back Aaron Jones will soon become free agents upon being released, while center Ryan Kelly has retired. The restructures finalized in recent days are enough for Minnesota to attain cap compliance in time for the start of the new league year, per Over the Cap.
Chargers Re-Sign Khalil Mack
Khalil Mack will not test free agency ahead of the 2026 season. He will instead remain in place with the Chargers for next year. 
Mack has agreed to a one-year deal with Los Angeles, as first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The Bolts will retain at least one of their two high-profile edge rushers as a result of this news. Mack has been in place with the team since 2022. This latest re-signing is now official, per a team announcement.
Retirement was once again a talking point at the end of this past season. It was reported earlier this month, however, that Mack planned on playing in 2026. That will indeed be the case. A re-signing was mentioned as a likely scenario in this case, so today’s news comes as little surprise.
During each of his first three Chargers seasons, Mack earned a Pro Bowl nod (bringing his career total to nine). He set a new career high in sacks with 17 in 2023, and upon arrival new general manager Joe Hortiz made it a priority to keep him in the fold. Mack played on a one-year, $19MM pact in 2024, and he did the same on a deal worth $1MM less the following season. Both of those contracts were fully guaranteed.
Team and player have worked out the same arrangement this time around. This is once again a fully guaranteed accord valued at $18MM, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports. That includes a $10MM signing bonus (h/t Over the Cap). Los Angeles will have Mack in the fold as a key figure in the pass rush department while Tuli Tuipulotu plays out the final year of his rookie contract. The latter earned a Pro Bowl nod in 2025 and if/when an extension is signed in his case, it will bring about a major raise.
Mack was limited to 12 games this past year, but he has largely remained durable during his Chargers tenure. With 11.5 sacks since 2024, expectations will remain high for at least steady production along the edge in this case. The former Defensive Player of the Year has racked up 113 career sacks, good for 28th all time. Only six active players have more, and a move into the top 25 will be within reach.
Attention will now turn to the matter of fellow Chargers edge rusher Odafe Oweh. He is currently one of the top pending free agents among pass rushers, and a first career trip to the open market looms. Hortiz has expressed a desire to retain not only Mack but Oweh as well. It will be interesting to see if he manages to do so, something which could be feasible given the Chargers’ healthy cap situation.
Ravens, QB Tyler Huntley Agree To Deal
Tyler Huntley‘s tenure in Baltimore will continue. The pending free agent quarterback has agreed to a new Ravens deal, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. 
This is a two-year pact. Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic notes it has a base value of $5MM. Incentives can push Huntley’s earning potential to $11MM, per both reports. This agreement has now been made official by an announcement from his agent.
Since arriving in the NFL, Huntley has spent most of his career with Baltimore. The former undrafted free agent has made 32 combined regular and postseason appearances; 27 of them have come as a member of the Ravens across two different stints. Huntley saw time with the Browns during the 2024 offseason before retuning to Baltimore. Later that year, he departed the practice squad to sign with the Dolphins and fill in for an injured Tua Tagovailoa.
Huntley once again wound up in Cleveland this past summer, although he did not survive roster cutdowns. That resulted in a Baltimore return via a practice squad deal. The 28-year-old found himself back on a depth chart including Lamar Jackson, but free agent signing Cooper Rush was in place as well. Rush received the first opportunity to replace an injured Jackson early in the 2025 season, but Baltimore’s offense struggled mightily with him at the helm.
Huntley eventually took over, and he handled starting duties in Weeks 8 and 17. Baltimore won both of those games, and over the course of the season Huntley set new career highs in completion percentage (77.6%), yards per attempt (6.4) and passer rating (103.1). Those figures came about in large part due to a small sample size, of course, but they helped raise the Utah’s product’s value ahead of a free agent period lacking in high-end quarterback options.
Huntley could have tested the market next week. Instead, he has agreed to a deal which will extend his current Ravens tenure. Rush is on the books for 2026 as things stand, but this news points even further in the direction of a release in his case. That would leave Jackson – whose pending extension remains a key cost-saving move yet to be finalized – and Huntley atop the QB depth chart moving forward.
This agreement marks a raise from the $1.17MM Huntley made in 2025. Baltimore has other key financial decisions to make for a number of reasons, not the least of which being creating the cap space needed to finalize the Maxx Crosby trade. With plenty more work to be done, the Ravens have at least settled their quarterback setup ahead of the new league year.
49ers To Re-Sign K Eddy Pineiro
When the 49ers were desperate to find some consistent kicking last year, they took a flyer on Eddy Pineiro and the former Panthers kicker delivered with a huge season. As a result, San Francisco has moved to secure him on a long-term basis, and according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the two sides have come to an agreement on a four-year, $17MM deal. The deal is said to include $10MM in guaranteed money. 
Pineiro actually started off as a soccer player growing up in Miami and signed a scholarship offer to play at FAU before running into some academic issues. He opted to play soccer at ASA College, a small juco in the area, and, at the behest of his father, eventually made his way out to Alabama for a placekicking combine with the football program. After impressing Nick Saban and earning a scholarship offer, Pineiro committed to the Crimson Tide before later decommitting and opting to stay in state with the Gators.
After going undrafted in 2018, Pineiro signed with the Raiders as an undrafted free agent but spent his entire rookie season on injured reserve. Over the following offseason, Chicago traded for the second-year kicker, expecting him to compete to replace Cody Parkey after the Bears’ infamous “double doink” playoff exit. Pineiro was the winner of the kicking competition and made his NFL debut kicking the whole season with Chicago, going 23-for-28 on field goals and 27-for-29 on extra point attempts.
A groin injury put Pineiro on IR again for the entire 2020 season, and he spent 2021 bouncing around. He spent bits of that year with the Colts, Commanders (then the Football Team), and Jets but only appeared in games with New York, making 8-of-8 field goal attempts and 9-0f-10 extra points. In 2022, he landed with the Panthers after an injury to Zane Gonzalez. This began a three-year stint in Carolina, seeing him play in all but two games for the Panthers over that time. Pineiro really seemed to establish himself as a franchise kicker, for his new team. At some point in his third year in Carolina, Pineiro edged into the all-time lead for career field goal percentage in NFL history. Though the record quickly slipped from his grasp, he’s been back and forth with a few active kickers ever since then.
After the Panthers neglected to re-sign Pineiro to a fourth one-year deal with the team, he signed a last-second contract with the 49ers a week into the 2025 NFL season, following the team’s dismissal of former third-round pick Jake Moody. Pineiro had his choice of a couple options after trying out for the Bills and getting interest from the Falcons, but it was San Francisco that won out. Pineiro went on to win the hearts of the 49er faithful, along with the nickname “Eddy Dinero,” and after the season came to an end, securing his future apparently became a priority for the team.
All three members of the 49ers kicking battery were on expiring contracts in 2025. San Francisco re-signed veteran long snapper Jon Weeks to an extended deal at the start of February and has now secured Pineiro for the foreseeable future. In order to bring the whole crew back in 2026, all that remains is for the 49ers to ink veteran punter Thomas Morstead to a new deal for next year, as well.
Although Pineiro remains in the all-time most accurate kicker race (he currently sits at second, behind Cameron Dicker, and remains in active competition with Dicker, Harrison Butker, Brandon Aubrey, and Chris Boswell, who round out the top five active kickers), his new contract only puts him as the 14th-highest paid kicker in the NFL in regard to annual average value ($4.25MM per year). His reported guarantee-total of $10MM is eighth-highest for a kicker contract in the NFL.