The 2026 Free Agency Thread

[Conn]

Feels like if we sign Stefon it's almost a lock that we'll also sign Trevon, given their ties to the area and how close they and their families/kids are. They've talked before about playing on the same team but it actually appears to be lining up this time.

Have to admit I'm getting a little heeby-jeeby-ish about Aiyuk with some of these instagram and other things, seems like it could be devolving into something where we sign him, he ghosts us, and then pops up living out of a shopping cart down by the railroad tracks.

But it would be a REALLY expensive gold-plated shopping cart, mind you

 

[CapsCommies]

I don't get the vibe it was this level methodical all the way through but close to what you describe, but they rolled with the punches on some fronts.

Year 1. Overhaul a bad roster so its at least competitive. That worked.

What didn't work to expedite the rebuild is they got minimal returns for having 6 top 100 picks. Aside from Jayden, if just one of them hit big it would change the narrative, but none of these players are anything special, at least not yet.

Year 2. Build the O line. Build the secondary. And kept to the veteran theme to make a run.

1 out of 3 worked. The O line worked. Secondary -- nice try but they failed. The veteran run part 2 failed, too.

Year 3. This year. The idea clearly seemed to be: get younger and faster at LB. Overhaul the WR corp. Improve edge.

In theory 2 out of the 3 worked. Clearly, the plan wasn't to wait to take on WR in year 4 -- they offered 30 million for Alec Pierce and then according to some were the highest bidder for Doubs. And Aiyuk was supposed to be the gravy on top of that. But the plan just didn't work out.

If Peters had said in his opening press conference that it would take four years to build a sustainable contender, I’d have found that hard to swallow. That mindset feels outdated. In today’s NFL, successful rebuilds accelerate much faster—if it’s not trending the right way by Year 3, regimes are often on the hot seat, and sometimes gone even sooner.

To be fair, I think Peters has done a solid job overall, with some clear missteps. But given what he inherited, overcoming that quickly would require a great job—not just a good one. And in my view, he hasn’t reached that level.

I think Peters has done a good to very good, but not great, job at building the roster. And the truth is probably somewhere between what I laid out and what you laid out vis a vis "by design" vs "rolling with the punches".

I also believe that as heralded as AP was, there is always going to be a learning curve when you get a big job for the first time and with everything going on in Washington when he took over, that learning curve was likely exacerbated. I mean FFS the guy had to worry about renovating the draft room and facilities on top of overhauling the FO staff on top of hiring a coaching staff and that's all before we even get to roster building. So fine.

I do think, that said, he likely sold Harris on a ~4 year process. Harris is a private equity guy. The average / target time horizon for a PE investment is 5 years. Preaching long-term, sustainable contention that takes time to build. I can see it in the room.

My point being, regardless of whether 4 years really is the right benchmark for how long it takes to turn around a sinking ship, I can very easily see Peters selling it that way to ownership. And why wouldn't you want to manage expectations to give yourself as long a leash as possible? It's what I would do. At the very least, I would err on the side of being conservative.

Time will tell whether it works out that way. But that's what I see when I look at the Peters era thus far.

 

[Conn]

I think it’s really damn rich to pop into a thread like this to essentially say “I admittedly don’t follow any of these players or this offseason stuff, but I can’t believe you all think you know anything and don’t just trust the team to know what they’re doing”

I think it’s even crazier in the context of THIS specific fanbase. This fanbase, as a message board braintrust, absolutely knew better than the last ten years of Snyder stooges, again and again. Every year we put together better realistic offseasons, drafts, etc. than the professionals and watched as things predictably crashed and burned as we feared (and eventually rooted for, for those who wanted us to hit rock bottom to help force a Snyder sale).

We had one miracle season in 2024 under this new regime aided by lots of fortunate bounces going our way, a stretch of really fun elite QB play in high leverage moments, etc. and then it was right back to some of the fans rightfully questioning offseason moves and watching the 2025 disaster unfold even worse than we feared, but were worried about. We hope that a longer term foundation is being built, but have still accurately critiqued things in real time that turned out to be problems.

And we’re just supposed to shut the hell up and trust what this staff is cooking, regardless? Setting aside how much that goes against the entire social contract of a forum like this lol, it also just isn’t logical. Some things this FO has done well, some poorly, and we’ve all commented while being along for the ride. We have no power but the power to observe and opine. But the idea that we should so quickly surrender the right to our opinions to a staff that hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt, that’s weak to me. That appeal to authority does not work for me when I watched knowledgeable fans be more correct than NFL professionals for over half my life leading up to the Harris purchase. I’ll trust the org on everything more than I trust us on some things when they earn it. Even funnier when you consider that largely when they’ve gone against consensus and been criticized here for their picks, they have yet to really succeed doing that. Our concerns have largely been valid, even if some here may have a hard time parsing well-meaning criticism from doom & gloom misery.

Wild series of posts to read this morning, SkinsFTW. Also Juaun Jennings would absolutely be the WR2 here, what an interesting sentiment that he’d be WR4-5 here. You’re correct that nobody wanted to give him top WR1/2 money, that’s apparent. He would’ve been a huge upgrade here, just as Diggs would, just as Aiyuk has the potential to be if he can still tie his shoelaces by the time he’s a FA

 

[skinsinparadise]

I think Peters has done a good to very good, but not great, job at building the roster. And the truth is probably somewhere between what I laid out and what you laid out vis a vis "by design" vs "rolling with the punches".

I also believe that as heralded as AP was, there is always going to be a learning curve when you get a big job for the first time and with everything going on in Washington when he took over, that learning curve was likely exacerbated. I mean FFS the guy had to worry about renovating the draft room and facilities on top of overhauling the FO staff on top of hiring a coaching staff and that's all before we even get to roster building. So fine.

I do think, that said, he likely sold Harris on a ~4 year process. Harris is a private equity guy. The average / target time horizon for a PE investment is 5 years. Preaching long-term, sustainable contention that takes time to build. I can see it in the room.

My point being, regardless of whether 4 years really is the right benchmark for how long it takes to turn around a sinking ship, I can very easily see Peters selling it that way to ownership. And why wouldn't you want to manage expectations to give yourself as long a leash as possible? It's what I would do. At the very least, I would err on the side of being conservative.

Time will tell whether it works out that way. But that's what I see when I look at the Peters era thus far.

Don't get me wrong, if I were Peters I'd sell it as a long process to Harris, too because it would protect my job.

But if I were Harris, I'd want to see signficant improvement over time to give Peters that kind of leash. IMO Peters has earned this season for certain.

Assuming Jayden plays like 2024 Jayden, IMO a bad season isn't forgivable two years in a row. If you have a franchise QB, you shouldn't be bad -- and in Peters' case specifically, there is a narrative around that as to the lack of weapons around Jayden. Some on this thread act like those that are not happy with Jayden's weapons are sort out outlier malcontents - but our point is much more the norm than those who defend the status quo. In short, if Jayden falls short and the WR spot is part of that narrative again, no doubt Peters will be put on the spot for it.

As for him doing a good to very job -- tough for me to go that far. He has two bad trades. One good one. One I'd say is a wash.

A mediocre draft in 2024 -- and you can say bad draft considering context, having 6 top 100 picks and pulling not a single a marquee player from that group aside from Jayden is poor.

He had a good, not great IMO 2025 draft. And this year it feels like a good draft but will see how it plays out.

 

[heisenberg]

Odd that that article would specifically call out the defensive line. We'll have to see if the signings work out in real game time, but I have a hard time picking that as something to be sure is below average lol. CBs, sure. But the D-Line is something I'd be raving about what they've done to fix it

I think its just because there's not a single name on it, kinda lazy reporting but when you look at it from an outsiders perspective theres not much there to get excited about.
If we had a myles garrett or a jalen carter on the line to go with what we have i think people would be raving about our defensive line but minus a single game changer our line looks pretty meh on paper.

 

[Conn]

The awesome thing in this league is that ONE monster draft where you nail a couple pro bowlers and an All-Pro can carry a dynasty, when you otherwise already have a QB (and hopefully an adaptable coaching staff). Great GM’s like Schneider and Howie have had poor drafts in between average ones, good ones, and great ones. Great ones can carry a roster for years and buy you time.

Peters, hopefully, is zeroing in on his best processes as he gains experience being The Guy in the building. Learning from his mistakes, tweaking his staff and processes and gaining confidence in himself. If he’s the real deal, he will eventually knock a draft out of the park that will unlock the puzzle he’s trying to build here. He needs that draft to raise our ceiling and for us to become one of the consistently best franchises. We’re all rooting for him to have that draft that changes the equation for us and actually starts making us fear that we may have too good a roster to resign all our studs. We’re aren’t there yet and until we are, people will have questions.

Once he’s earned the benefit of the doubt and proves he has a high ceiling as the top dog here, he’ll also earn patience with the less stellar moves and replacement-level drafts when they inevitably happen. Nobody is patient or trusting in someone longterm until they prove they don’t cap out at mediocre ceiling/mediocre or worse floor. A stud GM has to eventually NAIL a signature draft or he’s eventually going to get replaced, and fans will never fully believe.

 

[skinsinparadise]

I think it’s really damn rich to pop into a thread like this to essentially say “I admittedly don’t follow any of these players or this offseason stuff, but I can’t believe you all think you know anything and don’t just trust the team to know what they’re doing”

I think it’s even crazier in the context of THIS specific fanbase. This fanbase, as a message board braintrust, absolutely knew better than the last ten years of Snyder stooges, again and again. Every year we put together better realistic offseasons, drafts, etc. than the professionals and watched as things predictably crashed and burned as we feared (and eventually rooted for, for those who wanted us to hit rock bottom to help force a Snyder sale).

We had one miracle season in 2024 under this new regime aided by lots of fortunate bounces going our way, a stretch of really fun elite QB play in high leverage moments, etc. and then it was right back to some of the fans rightfully questioning offseason moves and watching the 2025 disaster unfold even worse than we feared, but were worried about. We hope that a longer term foundation is being built, but have still accurately critiqued things in real time that turned out to be problems.

And we’re just supposed to shut the hell up and trust what this staff is cooking, regardless? Setting aside how much that goes against the entire social contract of a forum like this lol, it also just isn’t logical. Some things this FO has done well, some poorly, and we’ve all commented while being along for the ride. We have no power but the power to observe and opine. But the idea that we should so quickly surrender the right to our opinions to a staff that hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt, that’s weak to me. That appeal to authority does not work for me when I watched knowledgeable fans be more correct than NFL professionals for over half my life leading up to the Harris purchase. I’ll trust the org on everything more than I trust us on some things when they earn it. Even funnier when you consider that largely when they’ve gone against consensus and been criticized here for their picks, they have yet to really succeed doing that. Our concerns have largely been valid, even if some here may have a hard time parsing criticism from doom & gloom misery.

Wild series of posts to read this morning, SkinsFTW. Also Juaun Jennings would absolutely be the WR2 here, what an interesting sentiment that he’d be WR4-5 here. You’re correct that nobody wanted to give him top WR1/2 money, that’s apparent. He would’ve been a huge upgrade here, just as Diggs would, just as Aiyuk has the potential to be if he can still tie his shoelaces by the time he’s a FA

I don’t remember where I saw it, but I once read that Howie Roseman tends to operate by coincidence to somewhat of what fans and media advocate — in free agency, the draft, and roster building in general. The Ravens similar story.

And stats wise I saw if you look at their drafts, they often line up pretty closely with the consensus boards.

Now, that doesn’t mean fans know best. Of course they don't. But it also doesn’t mean the crowd is automatically wrong. Sometimes the general sentiment — “we’re thin here,” “we should go get that guy” — is just… logical.

Take Jadeveon Clowney as an example. A lot of us wanted him this past summer when edge depth looked shaky. Not because we’re geniuses — it just made sense. He’s a proven producer and strong against the run. Then what happened? That thin depth got tested and exposed. Meanwhile, Clowney lands in Dallas, puts up nine sacks, plays the run well, and even impacts a game against us.

Or go back to when this team exposed the Eagles’ interior D-line years ago. That same week, Roseman reacted by signing the best DTs still available — Suh being one of them. That’s the kind of move fans would be screaming for in real time.

Point being, sometimes “fan logic” isn’t overreaction — it’s just common sense. I think because Dan operated like a stupid fan -- it gave fans with some intelligence a bum rap.

And just to be clear, I’m not saying fans are as informed as a GM or that we’re operating with the same information or experience — obviously we’re not. But let’s not pretend the front office is always right either. There are plenty of examples where fans called things correctly and the “brain trust” missed — and of course, plenty the other way around too. The point is, it’s not one-sided.

Overall, I like a lot of what Peters has done but far from all of it. There are also decisions I don’t agree with — and some of those concerns have already played out the way people here flagged them. So while I think he’s done a solid job, I don’t think he’s earned the benefit of the doubt across the board yet.
For me, that kind of trust comes with sustained success. Until then, it’s fair to evaluate the moves individually — some good, some not — instead of assuming everything is part of a flawless plan.

 

[skinsinparadise]

The awesome thing in this league is that ONE monster draft where you nail a couple pro bowlers and an All-Pro can carry a dynasty, when you otherwise already have a QB (and hopefully an adaptable coaching staff). Great GM’s like Schneider and Howie have had poor drafts in between average ones, good ones, and great ones. Great ones can carry a roster for years and buy you time.

Peters, hopefully, is zeroing in on his best processes as he gains experience being The Guy in the building. Learning from his mistakes, tweaking his staff and processes and gaining confidence in himself. If he’s the real deal, he will eventually knock a draft out of the park that will unlock the puzzle he’s trying to build here. He needs that draft to raise our ceiling and for us to become one of the consistently best franchises. We’re all rooting for him to have that draft that changes the equation for us and actually starts making us fear that we may have too good a roster to resign all our studs. We’re aren’t there yet and until we are, people will have questions.

Once he’s earned the benefit of the doubt and proves he has a high ceiling as the top dog here, he’ll also earn patience with the less stellar moves and replacement-level drafts when they inevitably happen. Nobody is patient or trusting in someone longterm until they prove they don’t cap out at mediocre ceiling/mediocre or worse floor. A stud GM has to eventually NAIL a signature draft or he’s eventually going to get replaced, and fans will never fully believe.

Absolutely. And he had a golden opportunity to do it in 2024 with 6 top 100 picks, and it doesn't look right now that he exploited all of those high premium picks. For that reason, I can't see how people feel he's done a "great" job.

It can happen for him this draft or the next or whenever. But he's not had that transformative draft yet -- arguably he hasn't even come close.

 

[skinsinparadise]

 

[CapsCommies]

The awesome thing in this league is that ONE monster draft where you nail a couple pro bowlers and an All-Pro can carry a dynasty, when you otherwise already have a QB (and hopefully an adaptable coaching staff). Great GM’s like Schneider and Howie have had poor drafts in between average ones, good ones, and great ones. Great ones can carry a roster for years and buy you time.

Peters, hopefully, is zeroing in on his best processes as he gains experience being The Guy in the building. Learning from his mistakes, tweaking his staff and processes and gaining confidence in himself. If he’s the real deal, he will eventually knock a draft out of the park that will unlock the puzzle he’s trying to build here. He needs that draft to raise our ceiling and for us to become one of the consistently best franchises. We’re all rooting for him to have that draft that changes the equation for us and actually starts making us fear that we may have too good a roster to resign all our studs. We’re aren’t there yet and until we are, people will have questions.

Once he’s earned the benefit of the doubt and proves he has a high ceiling as the top dog here, he’ll also earn patience with the less stellar moves and replacement-level drafts when they inevitably happen. Nobody is patient or trusting in someone longterm until they prove they don’t cap out at mediocre ceiling/mediocre or worse floor. A stud GM has to eventually NAIL a signature draft or he’s eventually going to get replaced, and fans will never fully believe.

I think Peters is learning the balance between high-floor and high-ceiling in drafting guys. Case in point, two 3rd round WR selections two years apart: Luke McCaffrey vs. Antonio Williams.

Agree that he has not come close to a "home run draft" just yet. And his first draft in 2024 has been probably his worst, albeit with the previous regime's staff in place.

 

[SkinsGuru]

For me personally, it wasn’t about Njoku, but the rest of the tweet.

And this is obviously cherry-picking. A famous NFL stats idea that tends to follow talented breakout players over the years is that “targets are earned”. Part of that means that when a target hog leaves an offense and his targets are vacated, they don’t just automatically get allocated to whoever replaced him or even necessarily other guys on the field. But the other part of it is that guys with really high efficiency rates on small target sample sizes are usually fool’s gold, because good players earn targets. Sinnott was on the field sort of a lot, ran a good number of routes for a 2nd year TE with vets in front of him, and still earned VERY few looks on those routes. He didn’t earn them. And he earned very few schemed touches, which is how impressing your coaches earns you targets. But after getting on the field, you’ve got to either earn the targets from the QB by getting open, or earn them from your coaches by being prioritized in the read or even schemed up easy touches to get the ball in your hands. He did neither of those things. He has one designed screen that I can remember, behind the LOS, and did well to lumber forward. But there wasn’t much of it and Kliff loved screens. I’m interested to see if Blough tries to use him over the middle/down the seam off of play action. That’ll mainly be a Chig thing but Sinnott should theoretically do well with that now that he can block at an NFL level to sell the run play initially and then peel.

last year Chicago (Ben Johnson's offense) was 2nd in using 13 personnel . . . and McVay and the Rams were first . . . form my understanding, Blough will take a ton of influence from Johnson and a good amount from the Shanny/McVay tree. So having all 3 on the field at once is something we'll probably see a decent amount of this year. OF they really dislike Sinnot. I personally think using him in the right situations he could be really good. Like others have said he is good with the ball in his hand, so you can use Chig as a decoy and run a TE Screen to him and probably get decent YAC doing some of those sorts of things.

 

[skinsinparadise]

I think Peters is learning the balance between high-floor and high-ceiling in drafting guys. Case in point, two 3rd round WR selections two years apart: Luke McCaffrey vs. Antonio Williams.

Agree that he has not come close to a "home run draft" just yet. And his first draft in 2024 has been probably his worst, albeit with the previous regime's staff in place.

I get the point not sure though about the example. Antonio IMO with the better floor and ceiling than Luke.

But I do agree that he might be learning that if you are drafting WRs in the 3rd-4th round -- shoot for polished route runners if possible. Also in Peter's defense, Antonio was pick #71, McCaffrey pick #100, so its almost a full round difference -- big difference from early 3rd to late third.

 

[Always Commander Never Captain]

The problem with Diggs and Williams is scheme fit. Both are best in the slot and can occasionally go outwide. It can work with Terry still, but if Terry goes down the offense will take a larger drop than we expect.

 

[Always Commander Never Captain]

I read some Patriots beat articles and the summary for Diggs is...

• Meshed well with coaches/players
• Struggled outside
• Good in slot
• Struggled in the playoffs
• Team views him as someone who beat up lesser defenses
• Production not worth cap hit
• Team was determined to upgrade at WR
• Even if cap hit was lower and they kept him, they would still want to make big WR moves in off-season (this one was written pre-free agency)

If we got Diggs, it raises the WR room, but sounds like we should view him more as a super Olamide Zaccheus rather than someone on paper who just had 1,000 receiving yards.

 

[KDawg]

I read some Patriots beat articles and the summary for Diggs is...

• Meshed well with coaches/players
• Struggled outside
• Good in slot
• Struggled in the playoffs
• Team views him as someone who beat up lesser defenses
• Production not worth cap hit
• Team was determined to upgrade at WR
• Even if cap hit was lower and they kept him, they would still want to make big WR moves in off-season (this one was written pre-free agency)

If we got Diggs, it raises the WR room, but sounds like we should view him more as a super Olamide Zaccheus rather than someone on paper who just had 1,000 receiving yards.

Super OZ would be a hell of a get. Regular OZ had 506 yards… super OZ has to be good for 750 minimum…

 

[Riggo44]

If we got Diggs, it raises the WR room, but sounds like we should view him more as a super Olamide Zaccheus rather than someone on paper who just had 1,000 receiving yards.

I would be all for getting Diggs, but let's remember, the Patriots faced defenses the equivalent quality of the first five weeks in Tecmo Super Bowl too. I think all their numbers are inflated.

 

[RedWolf]

I think if we added Diggs we would have a lot of options for JD...WR, TE and RB. I feel better about him than Aiyuk. I would be happy with a three-year contract and two years guaranteed, last year can be canceled.

Spend the $ AP!

 

[Always Commander Never Captain]

I think if we added Diggs we would have a lot of options for JD...WR, TE and RB. I feel better about him than Aiyuk. I would be happy with a three-year contract and two years guaranteed, last year can be canceled.

Spend the $ AP!

That seems a little too rich to me. 2 years fully guaranteed for someone who will be 33 and 34 in those years?

Keep in mind, this was Diggs lowest ADOT (Average Depth of Target) in his career

and that was especially noticeable in the playoffs against better defenses.

It wasn't just being in the slot. The verdict in New England was his routes had to be shorter than they expected in order for him to excel. Now all of this has a big caveat, cause as we all remember the Patriots offensive line fell apart and Drake Maye couldn't figure out how to play around that. His regular season sack rate went from bad but manageable (his sack yards lost are very good per sack), to setting records for how bad the sack situation got. So maybe the ADOT for Diggs would have been a bit higher than the really low 6.5 if Diggs could have used some longer developing routes.

I think any contract needs to build in some protections in case that ADOT trend gets worse in a hurry as he gets deeper into his 30's.

 

[skinsinparadise]

On PFF Diggs with almost a 90 grade which is close to elite, mind you a season from his ACL injury. Caught 82.5% of his targets.

According to them his best games were against the Bills, Ravens, Caroina and the Jets.

As to the Patriots desire to upgrade over him? I got no doubt, thats the lane they play in.

But this team doesn't play in that same lane, we aren't shooting as high at these spots. So relatively speaking this would be a clear upgrade.

If its Aiyuk, fine, I just don't love the variable that if he doesn't go to camp, SF shelves him for the season. But hopefully he had the wherewithal to understand that.

 

[DWinzit]

On PFF Diggs with almost a 90 grade which is close to elite, mind you a season from his ACL injury. Caught 82.5% of his targets.

According to them his best games were against the Bills, Ravens, Caroina and the Jets.

As to the Patriots desire to upgrade over him? I got no doubt, thats the lane they play in.

But this team doesn't play in that same lane, we aren't shooting as high at these spots. So relatively speaking this would be a clear upgrade.

If its Aiyuk, fine, I just don't love the variable that if he doesn't go to camp, SF shelves him for the season. But hopefully he had the wherewithal to understand that.

Yeah, a bird in the hand and all!

It would be nice to just add Aiyuk later (after eventually released whenever) as icing on the cake