Interest In Raiders’ Maxx Crosby Could Push Asking Price To Two Firsts
It’s no secret that Raiders star pass rusher Maxx Crosby is a top trade target for many teams across the NFL, but several factors have the potential to affect if Crosby leaves, where he may end up, and just how much the Raiders might receive if they choose to trade him. According to Vincent Bonsignore of the California Post, the sheer amount of interest in Crosby indicates a return of two first-round picks is very much on the table. 
We’ve discussed something along these lines in the past. The 28-year-old two-time second-team All-Pro and five-time Pro Bowler has established himself amongst the best edge rushers in the NFL. His seven-year career with the Raiders — six years in Las Vegas after a rookie campaign in Oakland — has amassed 69.5 sacks, 133 tackles for loss, and 164 quarterback hits. Though his awards haven’t stacked up quite as high as some of his colleagues’, his production as an acquirable asset is fully on par with past edge rushers who were traded like Khalil Mack and Micah Parsons.
To be fair, both Mack and Parsons were two years younger when they were traded — Mack in 2018, Parsons last year. When Mack was traded from the Bears to Oakland, the Raiders sent Chicago two first-round picks in return. Last year, Green Bay’s return for Parsons included two first-rounders in addition to veteran defensive tackle (and former first-round pick) Kenny Clark. Elite pass rushers are a commodity in the NFL. Though Crosby is two years older than both former examples, he’s still an elite pass rusher in the NFL, and if he isn’t worth two first-round picks on his own merit, team competition to acquire him is expected to drive his price up to that.
A factor outside of his performance metrics that could influence what we hear coming out of the combine on Crosby is the unknown determination of whether or not he wants to be traded. The Raiders would almost certainly love to hold onto him. The promotion of Crosby’s position coach to defensive coordinator could easily have been done with hopes that Crosby might be more willing to stick around if his main coach were not only retained on the new staff but promoted on it. Alternatively, Las Vegas may see enough value in what a trade offer could bring to their ability to accelerate the rebuild process.
There’s belief that Crosby may even want to stick around himself. Per an earlier report from Bonsignore’s colleague Noah Nussbaum, Crosby bleeds silver and black and may even be excited for the next steps of the Raiders’ rebuild. Alternatively, Crosby has already committed some of his best years to failed rebuild attempts as the franchise has cycled through head coaches and general managers over the years. He may decide that he’s waited long enough, that his patience has run out, and that it’s time for him to maximize his potential for success, both personal and team.
Another determining factor could be which teams opt to pursue Crosby. As we approach this week’s NFL Scouting Combine, coaching and personnel leaders in the NFL are set to convene in Indianapolis to observe and interview top collegiate athletes gathered from across the country.
The casual environment will allow for general managers to have off-the-record conversations through which they can gauge interest in tradeable players and begin negotiations on what price tags might look like. Teams with a standard or limited draft pick arsenal will almost certainly need to pair up the first-round picks from two separate years. A team that has accumulated a larger arsenal of picks, though, may be able to avoid two firsts by grouping several Day 2 picks with a first-rounder.
There are so many directions in which this conversation could go. It’s all speculation at the moment, but as team representatives from around the NFL gather in Lucas Oil Stadium this week, we could find a bit of clarity as ideas start to circulate around the combine.
NFL Coaching Updates: Bengals, Raiders, Chiefs, Vikings, Texans
The only team in the AFC North that didn’t see major coaching regime changes, the Bengals will not be left out of the offseason staff conversations after all. According to ESPN’s Ben Baby, tight ends coach James Casey has earned a promotion. The team has added the position of run game coordinator to his title.
Also, following up on the hiring of Davis Koetter as assistant wide receivers coach three weeks ago, Baby reports that last year’s assistant wide receivers coach, Jordan Salkin, has been retained on staff. Salkin has been moved to assistant quarterbacks coach for the 2026 NFL season.
Here are a few other coaching staff updates from around the National Football League:
- The Raiders, too, named their offensive run game coordinator, announcing today that Mario Jeberaeel has been named to the position. Starting his coaching career at the high school level in 2009, Jeberaeel, a Las Vegas-native, worked his way through the collegiate ranks with stops at Arkansas-Monticello, Kansas, and Abilene Christian before debuting in the NFL with the Falcons in 2021. Starting in Atlanta as a diversity coaching intern working with the offensive line, he was promoted to assistant offensive line coach in 2022 and special projects (defense) coach in 2023. He accepted a role with the Jaguars two years ago as assistant outside linebackers coach but saw his role change to defensive assistant for Jacksonville last year. He’ll be tasked with improving a unit that finished dead last in rushing yards and touchdowns in 2025.
- After losing outside linebackers coach Rod Wilson to the Cardinals, the Chiefs have moved to fill the position with Matt House, per Tom Pelissero of NFL Network. After a couple collegiate stops to start his coaching career, House dipped his toes in the NFL waters in 2008 as assistant special teams coach with the Panthers before spending the next three years as defensive quality control coach for the Rams. He returned to the collegiate ranks, where he earned defensive coordinator opportunities at Pittsburgh and Kentucky, before first joining the Chiefs as a linebackers coach in 2019. He left Kansas City to serve as defensive coordinator at LSU, and when Brian Kelly fired him after two years, he landed as the Jaguars linebackers coach in 2024. Last year, he returned to Kansas City as a senior defensive assistant. Per Pelissero, the Chiefs blocked multiple requests to interview House over the hiring cycle. The team intended for him to remain as a key part of their staff, and he will do so in 2026 as outside linebackers coach.
- Per Kevin Seifert of ESPN, the Vikings have added Kyle Caskey to their staff as an offensive assistant. Caskey is an older name, returning to the NFL after four seasons away from the league. Caskey first came to the NFL in 2010. In nine years with the Bengals, Caskey spent four as offensive quality control/assistant offensive line coach and the next five as running backs coach. He spent two years after that as running backs coach in Detroit and a final season as offensive quality control of the Jaguars in 2021 before disappearing from the NFL. Caskey resurfaced in 2024 as running backs coach/special teams coordinator of the UFL’s St. Louis Battlehawks and was slated to work as the Orlando Storm’s offensive coordinator before accepting this new role in Minnesota. According to Seifert, Caskey’s opportunities in the alternate professional football league were all the result of UFL head coach Anthony Becht, who Seifert claims is spearheading efforts to create opportunities for coaches to go to the NFL. Another one of Becht’s success stories is Bruce Gradkowski, who was hired as an offensive assistant with the Lions last year after his two-year tenure as the Battlehawks offensive coordinator.
- Lastly, according to Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports, the Texans are hiring Jay Simpson to join the team as a defensive assistant. After working his way through smaller collegiate roles at South Alabama, UAB, and Arkansas State, Simpson worked last year as the cornerbacks coach at Memphis. He’ll be making his NFL coaching debut with Houston in 2026.
Cardinals Announce Full Staff For New HC Mike LaFleur
On Friday, the Cardinals announced the finalization of their full coaching staff under new head coach Mike LaFleur. While several new names joined the staff, a good number of coaches were retained from Jonathan Gannon‘s prior staff, perhaps due to the late timing of LaFleur’s hiring. We’ve covered many of the coaching updates in previous posts already, but we’ll touch on the announcement’s new information here. 
We actually saw a number of hires break in the days leading up to the team’s announcement. For instance, Ian Rapoport reported on Wednesday that former Texas defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski would finally be making the jump to the NFL. A longtime collegiate staffer, Kwiatkowski began his coaching career at his alma mater, Boise State. Following a playing career as a defensive lineman, Kwiatkoski held multiple position coaching roles with the Broncos from 1988-96. He then spent time at Snow CC and Eastern Washington before getting his first DC offer at Montana State. He returned to Boise State as defensive line coach and, eventually, defensive coordinator before working DC jobs at Washington and Texas. His NFL debut will see him coaching defensive line for the Cardinals.
On Thursday, Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports reported that Arizona had finalized the hiring of former Chiefs outside linebackers coach Rod Wilson. Wilson originally debuted in the NFL ranks of coaching as an assistant special teams coach with the Chiefs. After returning to the collegiate level to coach linebackers at South Carolina and Coastal Carolina for two years, Wilson made his way back to Kansas City as a defensive assistant, getting promoted to his most recent position two years ago. In Arizona, Wilson will be asked to shift back inside as the team’s inside linebackers coach. With that news, Zenitz also relayed that last year’s linebackers coach, Cristian Garcia, had been retained but moved to a different position group. Garcia will now serve the team as defensive backs coach.
Zenitz also reported two more minor staff updates before the team’s announcement, breaking that Brett Ekkens and Brent Jackson had been hired. Jackson, formerly a defensive quality control coach with the Colts, will hold the same position in Arizona. When Zenitz broke Ekkens’ hire, the role on staff for the former Tiffin University head coach had not been determined, but the team’s announcement discloses that he will serve opposite Jackson as an offensive quality control coach.
On the offensive side of the ball, the announcement concluded the building of the staff by announcing that Connor Senger has been retained in his role as pass game specialist. Senger had gained some interest from around the league this offseason for potential offensive coordinator openings but, ultimately, didn’t land any offers. With the announcement, it seems Senger will be running it back with the Cardinals, with whom he’ll try to continue to show his coordinator potential. The announcement also revealed the retention of offensive line coach Justin Frye. In addition to assistant OL coach Chris Cook, whose retention was already reported, Senger and Frye represent the only returning offensivee staffers from 2025.
On defense, the only new information was the retention of Matt Feeney as outside linebackers coach and the promotion of Alec Osborne from defensive quality control coach to assistant defensive line coach. They join Garcia (in his new position) as the only three returning staffers from 2025 on the defensive side of the ball alongside defensive coordinator Nick Rallis. The announcement also disclosed that assistant special teams coach Sam Sewell and director of football strategy Kenny Bell had been retained in the same roles. Lastly, formerly hired as a coaching assistant in 2022, Jay Razzano has been named assistant to the head coach.
With all coaching roles filled, the focus will turn to each coach evaluating the players in their position rooms as determinations will now move to the roster and what players the Cardinals will be moving forward with and building around. The fans in Arizona will hope to get more out of LaFleur and Co. than they’ve gotten out of their last three head coaches over the past eight seasons.
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.
Latest On Eagles’ Situation With WR A.J. Brown
It’s been just over a month since the Eagles’ season ended with a home loss to the 49ers that featured what appeared to be a heated shouting match between head coach Nick Siriani and wide receiver A.J. Brown on the sidelines. Despite late-season rumors that the team could consider the possibility of trading Brown in the offseason, it’s been all quiet on that front up to this point. It might not remain quiet for much longer, though. 
According to Dianna Russini of The Athletic, while “substantial conversations about his future have not yet taken place,” there are expectations that talks on the matter will “ramp up around the NFL combine.” With over 300 college athletes headed to Indianapolis next week for the NFL Scouting Combine, scouts and executives from every NFL team will be congregating to evaluate and speak with draft prospects. With so many personnel decisionmakers in one place, the combine has become a notorious event for teams to begin preliminary discussions on players that might be available for the right price. This allows front offices to gauge interest in players and determine which teams may be willing to enter conversations.
Until then, though, discussions on the possibility of Philadelphia dealing Brown have continuously pointed to the idea that, more likely than not, the veteran wide receiver isn’t going anywhere. Jason Fitzgerald of OvertheCap.com did a deep dive on the financial implications of cutting or trading Brown with four years remaining on his current contract. Cutting him makes little sense. Doing so now would only help the team avoid a nominal $4MM 2027 salary guarantee set to be triggered soon while still requiring them to cover his $29MM guaranteed salary for 2026, resulting in $72.45MM of dead money along with a loss of $49.06MM in cap space. A post-June 1 designation only slightly deflates those figures to $45.35MM of dead money with a $21.96MM cap loss.
Moving Brown in a trade is a bit more viable, due to the nature of how Philadelphia structures their contracts. Per Fitzgerald, the Eagles utilize option bonuses that cover “all of the salary for a player in a year except for the minimum that is mandated” by the Collective Bargaining Agreement. This essentially functions in the same way teams use signing bonuses on restructures to pay players more in a given year while reducing their cap hit for the season. The deadlines for those options do hit until late in the preseason, so the team gets all summer to explore trade options for Brown.
Financially, trading Brown now would have similar costs to designating him as a post-June 1 cut. The transaction would result in $43.45MM of dead money with a $20.06MM cap loss. Per Mike Garafolo of NFL Network, because of those costly figures, the Eagles would likely require some serious compensation in order to move him any time from now until June 1. Trading him June 2 or later finally starts to make some modicum of sense, as the dead money figure reduces to $16.35MM and $7.04MM of cap relief becomes a possibility.
With how difficult it could be to move Brown, there’s always a possibility that the Eagles resort to retaining the veteran wideout for the 2026 NFL season, and if Brown’s recent appearance on The Edge With Micah Parsons podcast is any indication, that very well could be where things are headed. Throughout the interview, Brown had only good things to say. When asked about the firing of offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, Brown told host Micah Parsons that he had “the utmost respect for (Patullo),” going on to claim that “he did a tremendous job,” despite the offense racking up the ninth-fewest yards in the NFL. Brown even spoke on the future of the team. He started ambiguous, expressing his excitement “for the season” and “for what’s to come” but then laid out some team-oriented goals.
“As an offense, we just come back and just really watch tape and, like I said earlier, rediscover ourselves and go to work,“ Brown told his host. “We have great leadership in our locker room, and I’m fortunate to be part of it on offense. We do have a lot of talent, but talent gets us nowhere. It’s all about being detailed and disciplined.”
That all sounds nothing like a player making trade demands. That sounds everything like a player who has every intention of returning to run it back with his current team. There’s always a possibility that Brown realizes the financial restrictions his contract imposes on a potential trade and that acting like he has no intention of ever playing for the Eagles again would kill any leverage Philadelphia may need in order to accumulate the compensation necessary to make a trade worth the dead money and cap loss.
So, either Brown is playing the role of dutiful teammate to better his team’s chances of trading him or Brown is genuinely excited about his future with the team, and a trade might not be necessary. It’s hard to solidly get behind either theory at the moment, but more information may clear things up a bit once talks pick up at the NFL Scouting Combine next week.
Raiders Fill Multiple Coaching Positions
Klint Kubiak and Co. were busy today as the team filled multiple coaching roles. This evening, reports came out on the hiring of Ronell Williams as linebackers coach (via ESPN’s Adam Schefter) and Al Holcomb as a senior defensive assistant (per Mike Garafolo of NFL Network). 
Williams finds his way to Las Vegas after spending three seasons with the Eagles. Starting as a linebackers coach at Widener and a graduate assistant/defensive analyst at Temple, Williams found his way to Chicago in 2019 as a defensive quality control coach for the Bears. He joined the Eagles in 2023 as the nickel cornerbacks coach, was moved to assistant linebackers coach in 2024, and added defensive quality control coach to his title last year. Like Young, this will be Williams’ first opportunity to lead a position room in the NFL.
According to Jonathan Jones of NFL on CBS, the team planned to interview Titans senior defensive assistant Ben Bloom for the role before landing on Williams. Bloom spent the past two years working with Tennessee’s outside linebackers, so he may still be able to find a role on staff working with that more specific division of the position group for the Raiders.
Holcomb arrives in Vegas with over 30 years of coaching experience, with the last 17 all coming from the NFL. Starting as a graduate assistant at Temple in 1995, Holcomb held roles at Colby, Bloomsburg, Kutztown, and Lafayette over the next 13 years. He made his NFL debut as a defensive quality control coach with the Giants before being named a defensive assistant for the team. He worked as linebackers coach of the Panthers for five years before earning a defensive coordinator opportunity with the Cardinals. That opportunity only lasted a year, though, before he went to Cleveland as linebackers coach and run game coordinator.
After returning to the Panthers for three years and serving as an interim defensive coordinator before departing, Holcomb found his way to his most recent stop, Buffalo. He’s spent the past three years in Buffalo, starting as a senior defensive assistant before working the past two seasons as linebackers coach. His tenure with the Raiders will begin in a similar fashion as he provides his wealth of NFL experience in a minor role.
Lions President Rod Wood To Retire
After 10 years of service with the Lions, team president/CEO Rod Wood will be retiring from his position in Detroit. He will remain with the team until a “global search” led by Russell Reynolds Associates finds his replacement. The search for Wood’s successor is set to begin immediately.
Wood was hired by the Lions in 2015 following the dismissal of his predecessor, Tom Lewand. Then-team owner Martha Ford reportedly promised to conduct “a national search for the best leadership to manage (the) team going forward” after firing Lewand. Two weeks later, the position was given to Wood, who was already extremely familiar with Ford from his prior occupation as president and CEO of Ford Estates. Despite the team’s claim that Wood had been working closely with the team throughout Lewand’s tenure, which began after the Lions became the first NFL franchise to record a winless season, Wood acknowledged his lack of football experience, telling reporters that he “would probably say that (he’s) not qualified to run any other NFL team.”
Detroit intended for Wood to focus solely on the business side of the front office, while the team’s general manager would handle all things personnel. Wood still held some personnel-related duties tied to financials including management of the Lions’ salary cap and the signing of any high-value players. During his tenure, Wood oversaw the first planned major renovations to Ford Field since it had opened in 2002, completely overhauling the stadium’s videoboards and sound system and upgrading club seating areas. The team also installed new turf in 2023, replacing the previous 10-year-old turf with one meant to provide a more grass-like feel and improve player safety, though the results have since been questioned by the NFLPA.
During Wood’s tenure the Lions were 85-85-2, but seeing winning records in each of the past four seasons shows a positive trajectory for the franchise that had only seen two winning seasons in the 15 years before Wood was hired. The statement released by the team relayed that “Wood and his wife, Susan, are proud parents and grandparents who are excited to spend more time together and with their family,” so it appears that the executive in his mid-60s will be retiring from the workforce instead of returning to other business ventures. He gave the following quote in the Lions’ release:
I want to thank the Ford Family and, ultimately, Lions fans everywhere for trusting me to lead the Detroit Lions for the last 11 seasons. It has been an absolute thrill for me to lead this organization, and I am proud of what we have accomplished over that decade-plus. I am most proud of where I am leaving this organization, in the capable hands of (team owner) Sheila Hamp, (general manager) Brad Holmes, and (head coach) Dan Campbell.
‘No Trade Market’ For Tua Tagovailoa
FEBRUARY 16: The Dolphins’ preference remains a trade at this time, NFL insider Jordan Schultz confirms. He adds the team does not want this situation to “drag too long,” so a decision could be coming shortly. It could very well include a release in the absence of a market on the trade front.
FEBRUARY 13: As the new league year is fast approaching, the Dolphins have been working desperately to figure out a way out of the corner they’ve painted themselves into. As it’s been reported recently that Miami is nearing a decision on the future of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, it appears one option may be getting taken away from the team. 
According to SportsBoom’s Jason La Canfora, there is “no trade market” for Tagovailoa. All conversation from both the Dolphins and Tagovailoa concerning the future has revolved around the idea of a trade. At season’s end, Tagovailoa made it known that he would welcome a fresh start elsewhere, while the team made it known their hope was to trade him.
Our most recent update before this indicated that the Dolphins were still focused on the trade route for Tagovailoa’s exit, and they expressed a willingness to eat some of money owed to the quarterback in order to make it happen.
Just before the 2024 NFL season, Miami made the move to sign Tagovailoa to an extension following a season in which he led the NFL in passing yards while starting every game of the season for the first (and only) time in his career. In the wake of several other record-breaking contracts at the position, the Dolphins agreed to a four-year, $212.4MM deal with over $167.17MM in guaranteed money. Since then, Tagovailoa has missed a combined nine games in two seasons and, after averaging over 260 yards per game in three straight seasons, saw his average yards per game plummet to 190 this year.
We knew that Tagovailoa’s benching this year, combined with his huge contract and injury history, made a trade difficult, forcing the Dolphins to offer up the possibility of throwing in some offsetting cash. Per La Canfora, though, Tagovailoa isn’t a difficult trade piece; he’s a non-starter. Backed by input from several top NFL executives, La Canfora seems to indicate that teams in the league are already so turned off by Tagovailoa’s poor play and frequent concussions that they’re not even willing to take him on at a reduced rate.
La Canfora included a series of quotes from said executives, with several not limiting themselves to the language of polite society. One general manager simply told La Canfora, “They’re (screwed).” He went on to call the contract untradeable, saying that, even with Miami “willing to eat a (boat)load of” Tagovailoa’s contract, they “just don’t see a market for him.”
Another top exec relayed to La Canfora a “four-pronged” list of reasons Tagovailoa and the Dolphins were stuck with each other. It started with Tagovailoa’s inability to effectively push the ball down the field and make plays consistently anymore. It then moved to perceived leadership issues with concerns that he couldn’t move a locker room and comes off as ingenuine. The third prong called his concussion history alone “a no-go for a lot of teams,” and the fourth ended by calling his deal a “terrible…contract that nobody wants to touch.”
If Miami is unable to trade Tagovailoa, they will then be forced with the new decision of whether to cut him or keep him. In keeping him, the Dolphins would be retaining perhaps the most expensive backup quarterback in the NFL. As they attempt to obtain a new, young option at the position this offseason with which to move forward, Tagovailoa’s continued presence could also create uncertainty and doubt in the locker room. Cutting the 27-year-old, though, would shoulder the Dolphins with $99.2MM in dead money without providing any cap savings. Cutting him now would lock that money in for the 2026 season alone, whereas the best-case scenario would see the team designate him as a post-June 1 cut, allowing them to split that $99.2MM over two seasons — still a dire result.
Essentially, though the Dolphins seem to believe they’re making a decision between three options, the rest of the league appears to have limited them to two. Miami will need to figure out how best to work around the massive contract obligations that remain tied to Tagovailoa as they attempt to move on to a new era of quarterback.