Saints, DT John Ridgeway Agree To Terms
John Ridgeway will not be departing on the open market. The defensive tackle has agreed to a new Saints deal, Tom Pelissero, Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo of NFL Network report. This will be a two-year, $6.2MM contract.
More to come…
Jets To Sign OLB Joseph Ossai
Joseph Ossai will not return to the Bengals in 2026. The pass rusher’s first trip to free agency will instead send him to New York.
Ossai and the Jets have agreed to terms, NFL insider Jordan Schultz reports. This will be a three-year pact worth $36MM, Schultz adds. Ossai will receive $22.5MM fully guaranteed, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Expectations will be high for notable production off the edge in this case for 2026 and beyond as a result.
More to come…
Jets To Bring Back LB Demario Davis
Celebrating his 37th birthday earlier this year, Demario Davis has still managed to score a nice payday. The longtime Saints standout is returning to where his career began.
The Jets are reuniting with Davis, with NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero reporting the All-Pro linebacker agreed on a two-year deal worth $22MM on Monday. Davis will receive $15MM fully guaranteed. In addition to bringing Davis back to the Big Apple, the 15th-year linebacker will reunite with Aaron Glenn — a former Saints assistant.
Davis drew a Jets connection before free agency, as did ex-Glenn Saints charge Alex Anzalone. The latter has committed to the Buccaneers, so the Jets will inject considerable experience into their linebacking corps with Davis. The team has steadily chipped away at Joe Douglas’ LB corps, moving on from C.J. Mosley and not extending Quincy Williams (who hit free agency today). Davis will complement $15MM-per-year ‘backer Jamien Sherwood next season.
More to come.
Bears, DT Neville Gallimore Agree To Deal
Neville Gallimore‘s next NFL gig has been lined up. The veteran defensive tackle has agreed to terms with the Bears on a two-year, $12MM deal, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo.
More to come…
Giants To Sign TE Isaiah Likely
One of the Giants’ first moves of free agency will be the addition of a familiar face. To little surprise, tight end Isaiah Likely will be heading to New York once his new contract is officially in place.
Likely has agreed to a three-year Giants deal, NFL insider Jordan Schultz reports. The pact has a base value of $40MM and can max out at $47.5MM. Likely will reunite with head coach John Harbaugh after the two worked together in Baltimore for four seasons.
More to come…
Ravens, G John Simpson Agree To Deal
In need of improvements at the guard spot, the Ravens are turning to a familiar face. John Simpson is on his way back to Baltimore.
An agreement has been reached on a three-year, $30MM deal, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports. Simpson served as a starter with the Ravens in 2023 before doing the same as a member of the Jets for the past two years. He will be counted on to again operate as a first-team staple during his second Baltimore stint.
More to come…
Steelers To Acquire, Extend Michael Pittman Jr.
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.
Dolphins To Sign QB Malik Willis
Despite taking on a record-setting dead money sum from the impending Tua Tagovailoa release, the Dolphins will be the team that signs off on Malik Willis‘ second contract.
Willis is reuniting with Jon-Eric Sullivan and Jeff Hafley in Miami, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport, who reports the sides agreed on a three-year deal worth $67.5MM. Willis will receive $45MM guaranteed at signing.
While not a $30MM-per-year contract like recent rumors indicated, Willis will still cash in via that nice guarantee number. This figures to provide at least a two-year runway for Willis in Miami, which will spread the Tagovailoa dead cap hit through 2027. Still, a $99.2MM dead cap hit over that span and a $20MM-plus QB salary will be an interesting route to take. A bit of a smokescreen effort may have taken place on the Dolphins’ part, as Sullivan pointed to the team’s cap situation making it difficult to win the Willis sweepstakes.
In terms of AAV, Willis is set to hover in unoccupied territory. This number comes in south of the Baker Mayfield–Sam Darnold tier but well north of backup money. The full guarantee likely became a strong sweetener for the Jordan Love backup, who drew interest from a few teams — the Browns, Cardinals and Steelers among them. Presenting a strange free agency profile with six career starts, Willis ranked seventh on PFR’s top 50 free agents list. He will do much better than Justin Fields in terms of fully guaranteed money; the Jets gave their 2025 starter at $30MM guarantee.
Fields’ $20MM-per-year deal is the only QB contract in this neighborhood, but the Jets are about to terminate that deal. Soon, Willis’ $22.5MM AAV number will be the only QB pact in between Cam Ward‘s rookie salary ($12.21MM) and Mayfield’s current $33.3MM AAV.
Mike Vrabel deemed Willis unplayable late in the 2022 season, after the third-round rookie looked erratic in his short time at the helm. The Titans drafted Will Levis in 2023 and parked Willis behind he and Ryan Tannehill. A new Titans coaching staff signed off on trading the Jon Robinson-era draftee to the Packers for a low-end return in summer 2024. Willis became needed immediately, with Love going down with an injury in Week 1 of that season.
Matt LaFleur customized the offense to suit Willis’ skillset, and the effort created a market. Willis ran his start count from three to six in Green Bay, putting up eye-popping (and unsustainable) numbers. He compiled a 6:0 TD-INT ratio in Green Bay, having completed 70 of 89 attempts at a college-y 12.1 yards per pass. Willis also averaged 6.2 yards per rush (29/261/3). Willis will now work under Bobby Slowik, who will run a LaFleur-type scheme. Both are Kyle Shanahan disciples.
With Willis committing to Miami within an hour of the legal tampering period’s outset, other QB-needy teams will not need to authorize higher-end guarantees — most likely, at least. But some of those teams will be left scrambling, as a host of needs exist on this year’s market. That helped inflate Willis’ value despite the six career starts.
The Dolphins gave Tagovailoa six years but erred by giving him a $53.1MM-per-year extension in 2024. The Mike McDaniel passer showed tremendous promise as an accurate thrower, but concussions gave way to inconsistency for the left-hander. Miami benched Tagovailoa late in McDaniel’s tenure and was never seriously linked to retaining him — despite what would have been a easier route contractually — this offseason. Sullivan will take a risk with Willis due to his limited sample size, but he and Hafley certainly have plenty of information on him from the sides’ two-year overlap in Wisconsin.
Panthers, Jaelan Phillips Agree To Deal
As expected, the Panthers have made a big splash early with respect to a pass rush addition. Jaelan Phillips is heading to Carolina.
Team and player have agreed to terms, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. This will be a four-year, $120MM pact, he adds. Phillips has secured $80MM in guarantees on his second NFL contract.
Despite Phillips’ extensive injury history, the Panthers are betting big. Suffering Achilles and ACL tears in Miami, Phillips bounced back with a solid 2025 season split between the Dolphins and Eagles. Philadelphia could land a third-round compensatory pick, depending on its FA activity this year, thanks to this monster accord. The Eagles were believed to be closing in on a deal to retain Phillips, but they will stand down and let the 2025 trade pickup head to Charlotte.
Carolina missed on Milton Williams last year, being deep in talks before New England’s big offer won out for the impact free agent. The Panthers also lost Brian Burns in 2024, trading the Pro Bowl EDGE to wrap a lengthy saga. Although the Panthers drafted two edge rushers in 2025 (Nic Scourton, Princely Umanmielen), they will give Ejiro Evero a new lead sack artist.
PFR’s No. 3 overall free agent, Phillips only registered five sacks between his Dolphins and Eagles games last season. But he ranked 12th in pressures and submitted a strong (18.8% pressure rate that hovered far north of Trey Hendrickson or Odafe Oweh’s 2025 numbers). That keyed a huge market, with the $80MM in total guarantees representing the ninth-largest amount among edge defenders.
Phillips and Derrick Brown will be poised to provide an outside-inside tandem, as the Panthers did not feature a player eclipse five sacks in 2025. Carolina made the playoffs anyway, despite a 27th-ranked offense, but has struggled in the sack department since sending Burns to the Giants.
Going into an age-27 season, Phillips has shown better sack work in the past. He notched 6.5 in eight 2023 games, before suffering the Achilles tear on Black Friday. The 6-foot-5 EDGE also combined for 15.5 sacks over his first two seasons. Injuries have been a constant for Phillips, who briefly retired from the sport while at UCLA. Transferring to Miami, Phillips became a first-round pick. His Philly stint cemented one of the better FA cases in recent history, and the Panthers will expect an immediate pass-rushing boost as a result of this commitment.
Adam La Rose contributed to this post.
Commanders To Give LT Laremy Tunsil Record-Setting Extension
The Commanders have their extension agreement with Laremy Tunsil in place. Long rumored as a player Washington wanted to pay, Tunsil has secured a third career extension.
Tunsil agreed to a two-year, $60.2MM extension, insider Jordan Schultz reports. He is the NFL’s first $30MM offensive lineman. For the third time in his career, Tunsil has secured a market-setting extension. Tunsil will receive a $32.5MM signing bonus and a $61.5MM guarantee on a contract that now runs through 2028.
GM Adam Peters said a Tunsil deal was a priority. Considering the four-pick haul the Commanders sent the Texans for the Pro Bowl blocker, that made sense. Tunsil’s deal aligns with Jayden Daniels‘ rookie contract, and Washington entered Monday among the league’s leaders in cap space. Tunsil managing to score another market-topping deal ahead of his age-32 season burnishes his credentials as one of this era’s savviest negotiators.
Rumblings about an extension push emerged in December. The Texans paid the former first-rounder in 2020 and 2023. Tunsil played the 2025 season tied to a three-year, $75MM deal. That pact was set to expire after the 2026 season. The Texans not prioritizing a Tunsil deal in 2024 led them to move on, and after the Commanders saw Tunsil primarily protect Marcus Mariota last season, they will secure his rights beyond 2026 to block for Daniels.
Pro Football Focus ranked Tunsil seventh among qualified tackles in 2025, ranking him as the NFL’s second-best pass blocker. While a Pro Bowl nod did not follow this time, Tunsil secured five of those prior to his Washington arrival. He shrewdly leveraged his 2019 trade price — which included two first-round picks — in 2020 Texans negotiations, scoring a $22MM-per-year deal. After the tackle market did not move much between 2020 and ’23, Tunsil signed that 3/75 Houston extension — one that included $50MM at signing. He continues to do well on this front; the Commanders will need the decorated blocker to keep at his current pace to justify the latest windfall.
Washington released Tyler Biadasz last week, and while they were linked to Tyler Linderbaum, the team already has a higher-end guard salary (Sam Cosmi‘s). It will be interesting to see if Linderbaum joins a line that already has a tackle-record deal as of Monday morning.