NFL Mailbag: Kyler, Hendrickson, Carr, OL
In this week's edition of the PFR mailbag, questions regarding Kyler Murray, Trey Hendrickson, Derek Carr, the Browns' offensive line outlook and more are addressed.
Shea asks:
Where do you think Kyler Murray will end up? Do you think the ship has sailed with the Cardinals or is there a path for him to play under the new staff?
It is understandable that new head coach Mike LaFleur has declined to make any kind of declaration at this point of the offseason. That leaves the door open to keeping Murray for 2026, which probably wouldn’t be the worst option.
Rams To Promote Nate Scheelhaase To OC
The Rams will take the expected route of promoting from within to fill the offensive coordinator spot. Nate Scheelhaase is in position to take on an elevated role in 2026. 
Scheelhaase is being promoted to the role of offensive coordinator, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. He will serve as Mike LaFleur‘s replacement as a result. Schefter adds that quarterbacks coach Dave Ragone will maintain his current role while also having co-offensive coordinator added to his title.
During a head coaching hiring cycle dominated by staffers with a defensive background, Scheelhaase stood out. The 35-year-old has seen his stock rise considerably during a brief period. Only in place with the Rams since 2024 – his first foray into coaching at the NFL level – Scheelhaase was one of the most popular targets for HC interviews around the league last month.
After starting out at Illinois in 2015, Scheelhaase worked his way up the ladder at the NCAA level. He spent six years at Iowa State, working as the team’s offensive coordinator and QBs coach in 2023. That was followed by an arrival on Sean McVay‘s staff, something which has quickly resulted in an OC gig in the NFL. McVay will no doubt retain play-calling duties moving forward, but Scheelhaase will take on added responsibilities for 2026. He will look to become the latest member of the McVay coaching tree to elevate his standing around the league and land the opportunity to lead a staff elsewhere.
Ragone had been the only coach connected to the Rams’ OC vacancy since LaFleur departed to take charge of the Cardinals. After three years as the Falcons’ offensive coordinator under Arthur Smith, Ragone joined the Rams as their quarterbacks coach. He has played a key role in Matthew Stafford‘s ability to remain highly productive deep into his career, including an MVP campaign in 2025. The two will continue working together for at least one more year, but Ragone, 46, will also take on OC responsibilities for the first time since 2023.
The Rams averaged 30.5 points per game this season, good for first in the NFL. With Stafford set to return – likely on another reworked contract – expectations will remain very high for the unit. Continued efficiency would go a long way in setting Los Angeles up for another deep playoff run, and it would help Scheelhaase’s stock rise even further. A strong year with the title of offensive coordinator would no doubt lead to another wave of HC interest during the 2027 hiring cycle.
Pro Football Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat: 2/20/26
Pro Football Rumors' Sam Robinson will be holding a live chat at 4pm Central today, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers!
Ravens Hope To Re-Sign Tyler Linderbaum
As free agency approaches, Tyler Linderbaum remains one of the top players on track to reach the open market. The Pro Bowl center is still in Baltimore’s plans at this point, though. 
Last spring, the Ravens declined Linderbaum’s fifth-year option. That move came as little surprise since option values are determined by grouping together all offensive linemen. The same is also true of the franchise tag, leaving it as an unfeasible means of Baltimore keeping Linderbaum in the fold. Whether or not a long-term deal can be worked out over the coming weeks remains to be seen.
“We’ve got some work to do on Tyler Linderbaum’s contract,” general manager Eric DeCosta acknowledged during an appearance on the Inner Circle podcast (video link). “He’s a free agent. We strongly hope to have him back. He’s a great player for us and a great leader.”
Linderbaum expressed a desire to remain in Baltimore shortly after the team’s 2025 season ended. Based on DeCosta’s comments, the feeling is mutual. Baltimore has other matters to attend to from a financial standpoint in time for free agency, however. The most pressing one is a restructuring of quarterback Lamar Jackson‘s contract; until and unless that takes place, the Ravens’ cap flexibility will be unclear. The team’s ability to authorize a major Linderbaum extension will hinge in large part on its success in carving out space for 2026.
Seven centers are currently attached to an average annual value of at least $10MM. That list will soon grow, as Linderbaum is a strong candidate to reset the market. The Iowa product could easily top $18MM per year, which is the value of Creed Humphrey‘s Chiefs pact. Entering his age-26 season and having missed only two games so far in his career, Linderbaum will have no shortage of suitors if he tests the open market.
The Ravens may have a veteran contingency in place in the form of Connor McGovern should Linderbaum head elsewhere in March. Their preference would no doubt be to maintain the status quo at the center spot, and it will be interesting to see if progress at the negotiating table can be made shortly.
Indiana Gives HC Curt Cignetti Another Raise In New Deal
Hopefully, fans of struggling NFL teams aren’t banking on Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti making the jump to the NFL coaching ranks. While it would make a ton of sense to expect Cignetti to get NFL offers after his recent meteoric success in the NCAA, the Hoosiers are making it harder each year to buy the man out of his current commitment. 
It took a while for Cignetti to gain recognition for his accomplishments, but his notorious confidence is well-warranted, as a simple Google search confirms that he does, in fact, win. After 28 years filling assistant coaching roles at Davidson, Rice, Temple, Pittsburgh, NC State, and Alabama, Cignetti got his first head coaching opportunity in 2011 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Aside from a single 6-5 campaign, Cignetti never lost more than three games with the Crimson Hawks, going 53-17 in six years with the team. He then moved on to Elon, where he went 14-9 in two seasons before getting hired at James Madison.
Cignetti immediately made himself known with the Dukes, going 14-2 in his first year at the school en route to an FCS championship game appearance. Over three years in the FCS, Cignetti’s team went 33-5, and they kept to their winning ways when they made the FBS jump to the Sun Belt Conference, finishing 8-3 in 2022 and 11-1 in 2023. It was at this point that Cignetti was hired at Indiana, which at that point in time was the losingest program in NCAA history (most all-time losses).
In Year 1 with the Hoosiers, Cignetti and Co. went 11-2, making the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff but getting eliminated in their first game. It was the school’s first double-digit win season in its 127-year history (granted that in 61 of those seasons they did not play double-digit games). Indiana rewarded him with an eight-year, $93MM extension a month into Year 2 with the team. It hasn’t stopped there, though. Year 2 saw Cignetti’s Hoosiers become the NCAA’s first-ever team to go 16-0 en route to a national championship victory.
Apparently, Indiana didn’t believe the $11.63MM per year that they were paying him over the next several years was adequate compensation, because, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, Cignetti and the team have agreed to a new deal that will increase the annual average value of his salary to $13.2MM. He is under contract with the Hoosiers through the 2033 season.
Given Cignetti’s tremendous success, an eventual jump to the NFL felt like a no brainer. Instead, the school and coach have worked hard to solidify his future at Indiana for years to come. Perhaps some downtrodden NFL franchise will at some point inquire what it would take to lure him away from Indiana, but at the moment the Hoosiers are diligently building a wall around their leader and filling that four-walled room chock-full of money.
Chiefs’ Andy Reid Speaks On TE Travis Kelce, WR Tyreek Hill
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid created a couple headlines today as he addressed media questions on two veteran players who used to be the main levers of quarterback Patrick Mahomes‘ success. While Reid continued to keep the door open for the return of tight end Travis Kelce, he was quick to temper expectations that Kansas City would definitely pursue newly released wide receiver Tyreek Hill. 
According to Sam McDowell of The Kansas City Star, Reid informed the media that communication with Kelce had been ongoing. “There is communication,” he began (via ESPN’s Nate Taylor). “That’s the main thing. I’ve said this before: as long as there’s communication, I’m good. That means people want to move forward. I think that’s where Travis is.”
This question has been hanging over Kansas City since last summer. Looking ahead at the expiration of his current deal following the 2025 NFL season, Kelce made it known he was undecided on what would come next, but he soon came to the conclusion that he had no plans of finishing his career with any team but the Chiefs. As the team came out of their bye week with a loss putting them at 5-5 and longshots for the postseason, Kelce’s considerations once again turned to his future, and he staked his claim that he would come by a decision before the start of the 2026 league year.
If Kelce is going to return, though, he’s going to need a new contract. Looking forward to that possibility, Joel Curry of CBS Sports ventured to guess what that may look like for the 36-year-old tight end. It’s been clear over the past three years that Kelce is not quite the super star he consistently had proven to be from 2016-22. That being said, he has still routinely been among the top five players at his position. With 76 catches for 851 yards and five touchdowns, Kelce put up the fourth-most receiving yards for tight ends in 2025.
Still, it doesn’t seem likely he will be able to continue pulling in an average annual value of $17.13MM — good for third amongst tight ends, behind only Trey McBride ($19MM) and George Kittle ($19.1MM). It doesn’t even seem likely that he’ll have the fourth-highest AAV to match his productive output. In order to figure out how much Kelce might make in 2026, Curry drew a couple comparisons. He looked back to the years 2012 & 2013, when veteran tight ends Jermichael Finley and Tony Gonzalez each signed two-year, $14MM deals, respectively. With the salary cap at that point in time being $123MM, Curry calculates that the equivalent of a $7MM-per-year deal in 2025 would be a one-year, $17.25MM deal.
Again, though, it’s hard to imagine Kelce getting a raise in a return to play, so Curry draws comparisons to more current examples like Ravens tight end Mark Andrews and Steelers tight end Jonnu Smith. Andrews, 30, recently signed a three-year, $39.27MM deal (with an AAV of $13.09MM), and Smith signed with the Steelers on a one-year, $12.01MM contract for 2026. Andrews’ deal was a slight pay reduction after making $14MM per year on his last contract, while Smith’s was a reward for a breakout campaign just before turning 30. Putting all these examples together, and assuming that Kelce would more likely than not sign a team-friendly deal, a one-year contract worth anywhere from $12MM to $14MM seems feasible.
When it came to the possible pursuit of Hill, Reid was quick to point out some potential speed bumps in the way of an immediate reunion. “I don’t even know if Tyreek is healthy right now to do anything,” Reid told reporters, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. “I’m sure he’s working hard on that part of it, trying to get all that straightened out. We talk about everything, so there’s nothing happening there, but we know what you know, and he’s out there cranking away trying to get himself back to where he can play, period.”
While Reid surely didn’t confirm anything, he didn’t definitively shut anything down either. Along with the hiring of former offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy and the potential returns of Kelce and Hill, it would be interesting to see the Chiefs turn back the clock for Mahomes as he continues to work through the recovery of his torn ACL and LCL.
Minor NFL Transactions: 2/20/26
Today’s minor NFL moves as we head into the weekend:
Cincinnati Bengals
- Re-signed: CB Jalen Davis, RB Kendall Milton
Jacksonville Jaguars
- Re-signed: CB Keith Taylor
Two veteran depth cornerbacks were re-signed to one-year deals today. Davis will be entering his seventh season in Cincinnati. Going undrafted out of Utah State in 2018, Davis spent his rookie year with the Dolphins before signing onto the Cardinals’ taxi squad the next year. After a midseason release in 2020, Davis found his way to the Bengals, and he’s been with the team ever since. After several years of special teams duties, Davis saw significant playing in Cincinnati for the first time in his career. He started three of seven game appearances in 2025.
Taylor was a late-season addition in Duval last year. The Jaguars signed the fifth-year player off the Falcons’ practice squad after Jourdan Lewis landed on injured reserve, but ultimately, Taylor didn’t see any time on the field with Jacksonville. Originally a fifth-round pick for the Panthers out of Washington, Taylor spent two years in Carolina and two more in Kansas City before landing in Atlanta. He has five starts in 47 games played over the first five years of his career.
Dolphins Announce 2026 Coaching Staff
The Dolphins announced their 2026 coaching staff under new head coach Jeff Hafley last week with a number of previously unannounced hires on the list.
On offense, Miami added tight ends coach Ron Middleton and retained assistant TEs coach Lemuel Jeanpierre, and assistant wide receivers coach Jonathan Krause.
Middleton did not coach in 2025, but previously served as the tight ends coach for the Jets (2021-2024), Jaguars (2013-2020), and Buccaneers (2004-2006) with stints at Alabama and Duke between 2006 and 2013. A former tight end himself, Middleton spent a decade in the NFL with 118 appearances and 56 starts. He primarily featured as a blocker and won a Super Bowl with Washington in 1991.
Jeanpierre spent the last six seasons working with the Dolphins’ offensive line, with five years as an assistant and one leading the room in 2021. Like Middleton, Jeanpierre played in the NFL and won a Super Bowl (2013 with the Seahawks), though he lined up at guard, not the position he now coaches.
Krause has been with the Dolphins since 2023, first as an offensive assistant before he was promoted to his current role in 2024. He previously served as the wide receivers coach at UNLV (2021-2022) and San Diego State (2023), with earlier jobs at Vanderbilt and Oregon. Krause, a former wide receiver, also won a Super Bowl (2014 with the Patriots), though he only played in the regular season for the Eagles in 2015.
Kent State special teams coordinator/tight ends coach CJ Conrad is also expected to join Hafley’s staff, per CBS Sports’ Matt Zenitz. The former Kentucky tight end spent one training camp with the Giants before returning to his alma mater as a graduate assistant in 2020. He then moved to Eastern Kentucky as a tight ends coach in 2023 and landed his job at Kent State last year.
The Dolphins’ new defense staff includes assistant defensive backs/nickels coach DeShawn Shead and quality control coach Siriki Diabate.
Shead was a member of the Legion of Boom on the same Super Bowl team as Jeanpierre. After a seven-year playing career, Shead returned to Seattle in 2023 as an assistant defensive backs coach before taking the same position in Miami the following year. He will not add nickels coach to his title, continuing a trend of NFL teams hiring a dedicated coach for that specific position.
Diabate is getting his first full-time opportunity in the NFL after previous internships with the Bills, Cowboys, Eagles, and Packers. Diabate played at Syracuse and began his coaching career at his alma mater in 2013. He worked for Colgate from 2015 to 2017 before taking a linebackers coach jobs at Middle Tennessee (2017-2021) and UConn (2022-2025). At the latter stop, he had the additional title of run game coordinator.
Bears Approaching Indiana Relocation?
JANUARY 20: Even if the Bears move to Indiana, they will continue to practice at Halas Hall, their facility in Lake Forest, Illinois, according to Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun-Times. Lake Forest is about 40 miles north of Soldier Field in Chicago and about 60 miles north of Hammond, Indiana. That distance is “largely irrelevant,” Finley adds, “given that the Bears, like every other NFL team, spends the night before each game — both home and away — at a hotel.”
The Bears invested over $100MM in Halas Hall in 2019 and both players and staff live in the area, so moving away would cause a number of unnecessary headaches for the team.
JANUARY 19: The Bears have looked into a potential relocation to northwest Indiana as they weigh their new stadium options. A move across the border appears to remain a distinct possibility. 
On Thursday, an amendment to Senate Bill 27 received unanimous approval in the state during a Ways and Means committee hearing in Indiana. As noted by All CHGO’s Adam Hoge, only a direct agreement between governor Mike Braun and the Bears themselves seems to be in the way of a final step regarding relocation. It was confirmed today the Bears are still willing to commit $2 billion to the construction of a new stadium in Indiana, as they have been for a potential move to Arlington Heights in Illinois.
“We’ve identified a promising site near Wolf Lake in Hammond and established a broad framework for negotiating a final deal,” a statement from Braun reads in part. “If approved, the proposed amendment to Senate Bill 27 puts forward the essential framework to complete this agreement, contingent upon site due diligence proceeding smoothly.”
An Illinois House Finance and Revenue committee hearing was scheduled to take place today, but it was canceled. Hoge reports the megaprojects bill which could have granted the Bears “tax certainty” regarding the Arlington Heights project was on the agenda but was not set to be voted on. The Bears still own a plot in Arlington Heights at this time.
“The passage of SB 27 would mark the most meaningful step forward in our stadium planning efforts to date,” a Bears statement reads in part. “We are committed to finishing the remaining site-specific necessary due diligence to support our vision to build a world-class stadium near the Wolf Lake area in Hammond, Indiana… We value our partnership and look forward to continuing to build our working relationship together.”
Hammond falls within a 75-mile radius of downtown Chicago. As such, the Bears already own marketing rights there in line with NFL rules for all of its teams. As noted by the Indy Star’s Joel A. Erickson, the Colts’ stance on this matter has not changed since a Bears relocation to Indiana became possible. The Colts simply “wish the Bears all the best on their stadium initiative.”
Connor Orr of Sports Illustrated reports a move across the Illinois-Indiana border “feels like an inevitability” at this point. Nothing has been finalized, but this is certainly a situation to watch closely. Interestingly, a move to Hammond would see the Bears play in the same location where George Halas spent time as a player in 1919 (h/t Mark Potash of the Chicago Sun-Times). The manner in which Illinois responds to today’s developments will likely play a key role in determining the Bears’ post-Soldier Field future.
Cowboys Waive LB Logan Wilson
The Cowboys were hoping that Logan Wilson could stabilize the middle of their defense when they acquired him at the 2025 trade deadline.
The trade did not work out, as the veteran linebacker struggled to make an impact in Dallas. He has now been waived before the 2026 league year, per team reporter Tommy Yarrish.
Wilson, 29, was a 2020 third-round pick by the Bengals. He emerged as a reliable starter during his rookie contract and earned a four-year, $36MM extension as a result. He showed signs of regression in 2024 before undergoing season-ending knee surgery. Wilson was then usurped by rookie linebackers Demetrius Knight and Barrett Carter in 2025, leading him to demand a trade out of Cincinnati.
By that time, his trade value had plummeted, and the Bengals could only get a 2026 seventh-rounder from the Cowboys. But Wilson only logged 24 tackles in seven games (50% snap share) in Dallas and could not carve out a full-time role.
The Cowboys will free up $6.5MM with the move, per Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap, but they still have plenty of work to do before becoming cap-compliant for the new league year. Dallas will also need to find more linebacker depth with only DeMarvion Overshown, Marist Liufau, and Shemar James under contract in 2026. Their specific needs at the position may also change with new defensive coordinator Christian Parker and his move away from a 4-3 defense and towards a “multiple” scheme that will be a 3-4 “by nature.”
Wilson, meanwhile, will join a free agent class that has several veteran linebackers with similar profiles. After his regression in the last two years, Wilson may have to take a much cheaper ‘prove it’ deal to rebuild his value and help him establish a second chapter of his career in the NFL.