Four years, $168.8M — no drama, no holdout. The Maxx Crosby saga ends with a degenerative finding and a thirteen-hour pivot to Hendrickson. A.J. Brown, eight weeks to June 1.
I want to start this week with Seattle, because I think the conversation about what the Seahawks are building is not being had at the right scale. Four years, $168.8 million. $42.15 million per year. Jaxon Smith-Njigba is 24 years old and he is now the highest-paid wide receiver in the history of professional football. The extension surpasses Ja'Marr Chase's $40.25 million record by nearly two million dollars per year and was completed without a holdout, without a negotiating drama, without a single day of public posturing. Seattle looked at what they had, priced it honestly, and secured it.
Great organizations pay what their players are worth. Super Bowl MVPs go to the Chiefs. Second chances matter. Ten things I am watching this week.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba is 24 years old and he just became the highest-paid wide receiver in the history of professional football. Four years. $168.8 million. $42.15 million a year. The number surpasses Ja'Marr Chase's record by almost two million dollars per year. And Seattle made it happen without drama, without a holdout, without a single day of negotiating theater. They saw what they had. They paid for it. They moved on.
Drake Maye went to the Super Bowl in year two. Romeo Doubs gives him a real target. The Patriots are still pursuing A.J. Brown. And Rodgers has until the end of the month.
I want to start this week with New England, because I think the conversation about what Mike Vrabel has built in Foxborough is not being had at the right level. Drake Maye completed 354 passes for 4,394 yards, threw 31 touchdowns, ran for 450 yards, and posted a 113.5 passer rating in his second NFL season. His team finished 13-4, won the AFC East, and played in Super Bowl LX — where they lost to Seattle, 29-13. That is a legitimately extraordinary outcome for a franchise that, two years ago, was looking at a full rebuild with a first-overall pick and no clear timeline.
That is a man who knows where he is and who he is coaching for. Meanwhile in Athens, Gunner Stockton walked to the huddle and nobody had to say whose huddle it was.
Lane Kiffin rode in the Baton Rouge St. Patrick's Day parade today. I want you to understand that sentence completely. Lane Kiffin — the head football coach of the LSU Tigers, one of the most scrutinized jobs in college football, in his first spring in Baton Rouge with 51 new players on his roster and a quarterback recovering from a Lisfranc injury — got on a float in a parade and rode through a city that has been waiting for him to arrive for four months.
Eleven of fourteen additions have prior ties to Saleh, Daboll, or Carthon. The organizational philosophy is on the record. And Atlanta's story was always about a Penix ACL, not a competition.
The most interesting organization in the AFC this week is not Pittsburgh, which still has its quarterback question open. It is Tennessee. Here is what Robert Saleh and general manager Ran Carthon did in the first day of free agency. They spent somewhere between $270 and $275 million. They signed pass rusher John Franklin-Myers to three years and $63 million. They acquired edge rusher Jermaine Johnson II from the Jets in a trade, sending nose tackle T'Vondre Sweat to New York. They signed wide receiver Wan'Dale Robinson to four years and $78 million. They added Mitchell Trubisky as the backup quarterback behind Cam Ward. And by the end of the day, eleven of the fourteen additions they had made had prior connections to Saleh, to Carthon, or to offensive coordinator Brian Daboll.
McCarthy's roster additions say everything about the offense he wants to run. The quarterback question is still open. And Indiana just signed a stadium bill that changed the conversation in Springfield.
Week two of free agency opened Monday without the quarterback question in Pittsburgh being answered, and I want to spend this morning talking about why that unanswered question is the most interesting story in the league right now. Here is what Pittsburgh has done in the first week and a half of the new league year: they traded for Michael Pittman Jr. from Indianapolis and signed him to a three-year, $59 million contract. They signed Rico Dowdle, who rushed for 1,076 yards in Carolina last season, as their primary back. They re-signed Cameron Heyward on a two-year extension. They brought in Jamel Dean from Tampa Bay for the secondary. Pittman, notably, played under Mike McCarthy in Dallas.
The tape on Pittman is about anticipation, not athleticism. The tape on Dowdle is about patience and contact balance. Put them together and the offense has a very specific shape.
Pittsburgh added three players this week and the football conversation has been almost entirely about Aaron Rodgers. I understand why. But I want to have the other conversation — the one about what Michael Pittman Jr. and Rico Dowdle actually do on a football field, and what their presence tells you about what Mike McCarthy intends to run. Pull the Indianapolis film from the last two seasons and watch Pittman on routes at 10 to 14 yards. He is not a field-stretcher. He has never been a field-stretcher. What he is — and what the tape shows consistently across four seasons — is a receiver who wins the contested catch at the second level, who holds position on curls against off coverage, and who delivers after the catch in tight spaces. He is 6-4, 223 pounds, and he runs through would-be tacklers at the second level consistently enough that it registers as a pattern, not an outlier. The yards after contact numbers are real and they are the result of how he runs routes, not just how big he is.
The kid from Jennings, Louisiana signed with New Orleans on Friday. Georgia opens spring practice tomorrow. Pittsburgh's quarterback question is coming. Ten things to watch this week.
Travis Etienne is home. I want to say that again, because I think some people read that transaction line on Friday afternoon and moved on to the next item. Travis Etienne — the kid from Jennings, Louisiana, who drove two hours to Baton Rouge to play college football, who became one of the best running backs in the country, who got drafted by Jacksonville and played five years in Florida — signed with the New Orleans Saints and is going home.
A possession receiver, a downhill back, a retained defensive anchor. The quarterback question remains open. The roster additions are not ambiguous about what they're waiting for.
The picture of what Mike McCarthy intends to build in Pittsburgh has taken shape over the first week and a half of free agency, with a collection of acquisitions that function as a philosophical statement about how the organization's new head coach intends to play the game. Pittsburgh acquired wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. from Indianapolis in a trade and signed him to a three-year, $59 million contract. Pittman played under McCarthy in Dallas and represents a specific receiver profile: 6-4, physically dominant at the second level, effective on intermediate timing routes when the quarterback delivers on schedule. The Steelers also signed running back Rico Dowdle, who rushed for 1,076 yards in Carolina last season, and brought in cornerback Jamel Dean from Tampa Bay. Defensive tackle Cameron Heyward, 35, was retained on a two-year, $32.25 million extension with $16.25 million fully guaranteed.
The division's combined window commitment was the largest in recent history. Four organizations, four philosophies, all reaching their conclusions in the same eighteen hours.
The AFC North emerged as the most active division in the final twenty-four hours of the negotiating window, with all four organizations reporting agreements that combined represent the largest single-day divisional commitment in the window's recent history. Baltimore's additions concentrated on the secondary. The Ravens added two cornerbacks in the window's final hours, addressing what their coaching staff had identified as the defensive unit's primary exposure point last season. Baltimore's organizational approach has consistently been to address diagnosed weaknesses through the first wave of free agency rather than paying the premium that the draft demands when need is transparent. The additions are consistent with that pattern.