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8 NFL Free Agents Who Could Break the Bank in 2026 | Bleacher Report
S Bryan Cook
To his credit, while speaking to reporters at the end of last season Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton said he has seen the growth from Cook over his first four years in the NFL.
“He’s definitely been evolving year to year,” Bolton said. “And this year, he’s obviously taken big steps, just making sure everybody’s on the same page, including me.”
However, like so many players on this list Cook’s next contract may have more to do with the talent (or lack thereof) available at safety than Cook himself. Cook has never had even 90 tackles in a season. His coverage numbers aren’t blowing anyone’s doors off either—his passer rating against of 128.5 in 2025 was actually the second-best of his career.
The logic of giving a player with Cook’s resume over $14 million a season and making him a top-10 safety in terms of average annual salary is…questionable.
Louis Riddick suggests a quarterback trade for the Kansas City Chiefs | Chiefs Wire
The backup quarterback position for the Kansas City Chiefs is a crucial spot, as shown by the impact of not having Patrick Mahomes in past seasons. ESPN’s Louis Riddick suggests the team trade for Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson during a recent ‘Get Up’ appearance.
“No one is going to question Andy Reid. No one is going to question the wisdom of going ahead and sitting behind Patrick Mahomes,” said Riddick. “No one is going to question that at this point, considering they just brought back Eric Bieniemy for the single most important reason, which is: they really needed to instill some accountability on that side of the football. I think that’s exactly what Richardson needs.”
Travis Kelce could reportedly command $15 million per year as ‘studio presence’ | Awful Announcing
That tracks with what we’ve covered here before. Back in January, Marchand assessed Kelce as someone who would only accept a No. 1 job and pegged his range anywhere from $10 to $20 million. The $15 million studio floor is essentially the low end of that range, and it’s for the role Kelce might not even want.
Kelce wants the booth. He said so last July on Bussin’ With the Boys — unprompted and unambiguously — that he grew up mimicking the guys who called games, that he always imagined what it would feel like actually to be one of them. He saw Tom Brady’s $375 million Fox deal and, by his own admission, “everyone saw it.” If he’s going to do this, he wants to call games, not react to them from a set somewhere.
The one thing giving him pause isn’t the workload or the possibility of ending up on sites like Awful Announcing. It’s reading. His SNL hosting stint — which required table reads — was, in his words, “a f*cked situation” for a guy who, by his own description, “can’t really read that well.” Player names, he admitted, would be where he’d “get f*cking ruined” in a live broadcast setting. Butchering a name or two has never stopped anyone from having a long career in this industry, just ask Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo.
Speaking to CBS Sports’ Ryan Wilson and former Tennessee Titans GM Ran Carthon at the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine, Banks was asked which NFL players he models his game after. It didn’t take him long to come up with his response.
“Definitely, after Chris Jones, for sure,” Banks said. “The athleticism that he has. How he carries himself. He’s a dog. I feel like we have similar traits. I’m not there all the way yet, but once I reach the higher end of my ceiling, I’ll be able to go out there and do what I do. I definitely feel like I’ll pass him up a little bit.”
“Ya heard that, Chris?” Carthon said. “Chris, you watching? He’s coming for you.”
Well, Chris actually heard it, or rather saw it, and responded with some words of encouragement on X (formerly Twitter).
“Keep at it!” Jones wrote, preceded by two flexing emojis.
Looking at the Chiefs “Reserve/Future” Signees Heading into the 2026 Offseason | The Mothership
WR Andrew Armstrong
The 6-foot-4, 204-pound Armstrong went undrafted in 2025 after leading the SEC in receiving yards (1,140) at Arkansas in 2024, marking the second-best single season in terms of yards and catches (78) in school history. It was a strong follow-up to Armstrong’s initial campaign with the Razorbacks a season prior, which included 56 grabs for 764 yards and five touchdowns.
That overall performance put a bow on an impressive career that began at Texas A&M-Commerce, a Division II school, where Armstrong tallied 77 catches for 1,317 yards and 16 touchdowns between the 2021 and 2022 campaigns.
Around the NFL
NFL salary cap hits milestone at $301.2 million for 2026 | ESPN
The cap has increased 40% in just five years, since it dropped coming off the pandemic-altered 2020 season when few or no fans were allowed to attend games.
The numbers were sent to clubs Friday, and teams must be under the salary cap by March 11, the first day of the new league year.
Rapid growth has been expected since the COVID-19 season, and the biggest year-to-year increase of $31 million came from 2023 to 2024.
The cap dropped to $182 million in 2021 from $198 million going into the pandemic season. The increase has been at least $16 million each year since then, with an average increase of $24 million.
2026 NFL combine: Oregon’s Kenyon Sadiq runs fastest 40 by tight end since at least 2003 | NFL.com
Sadiq’s official time bested the previous mark of 4.40 seconds, set by Vernon Davis in 2006 and tied by Dorin Dickerson in 2010.
The 6-foot-3 1/8, 241-pound Sadiq was expected to be a standout during the workout portion of the event, and he started the night with a broad jump of 11-1. It was the highest mark of the 2026 combine among tight ends before Vanderbilt’s Eli Stowers topped it a few minutes later with a jump of 11-3.
Sadiq shined in the vertical leap, too, jumping 43 1/2 inches, only to be outdone by Stowers shortly thereafter after he posted a jump of 45 1/2 inches, the best mark by a TE since at least 2003.
The Atlanta Falcons fired assistant coach LaTroy Lewis on Friday after the Ann Arbor Police Department confirmed an investigation into an alleged sexual assault involving Lewis that occurred in 2024 when he was a staffer at Michigan.
The assault accusations were first made public on social media on Thursday night by reporter Justin Spiro.
“The Ann Arbor Police Department was just recently made aware of allegations regarding a sexual assault reported to have occurred on December 5, 2024,” strategic communications manager Chris Page wrote in an email to The Athletic. “The AAPD Detective Bureau launched an immediate investigation into the incident. This investigation remains active and ongoing.”
The initial statement did not identify a suspect, but Page later confirmed that Lewis is the suspect in the investigation.
The Falcons fired Lewis as assistant defensive line coach hours after they issued a statement saying they were aware of allegations involving Lewis and were “in the process of gathering information.”
In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride
Is Rueben Bain Jr. too risky for the Chiefs to select in the top 10?
Would Melvin Ingram’s career be considered a success for Bain if he’s drafted ninth overall? What about Markus Golden’s? Brandon Graham was a good player for a long time, but he had exactly one season with double-digit sacks. Was Carl Lawson good enough to justify a top 10 pick?
If you’re betting on a player to be a historical outlier, you better be right. Especially when you’re drafting that player in the top 10 for a franchise with very few opportunities to do so. This is too important a draft and too important a pick for the Chiefs to whiff. The opportunity cost is simply too great.
There’s a point at which Bain would be an obvious pick for the Chiefs. The arm length limitations make that case much more difficult to make with the ninth overall pick.
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