2026 Free Agent Thread

This is a year where Omar is on the hot seat. I cannot imagine going into 26 with the same class of WRs as 25.
I'm figuring Pittman became expendable with the raise given to Pierce... not sure.
But this is a solid pickup. Not starstruck power but solid.

 

Damn that's too much for the Steelers to pay $7 million a year.

 

You would think the Steelers would have wanted to keep the offensive players that actually produced last year

 

I think the problem is that they still believe that Warren is the starter. They just didn't want to pay the backup that much money.

This is a tough loss though. Gainwell was awesome last year.

Time for Johnson to step up and they may draft another one in a few weeks.

 

It aggravated me that M. Delane didn't run at the 40 in the combine. I also like C. Hood

 

I would bet money they draft another in a later round

 

But not at that price they probably didn't want to give Gainwell more money than Warren.

 

I hate that crap when these guys are healthy then come to the combine but don't want to participate.

 

Same. I always feel like they are trying to hide something when they do it.

 

Sad to see Gainwell go, but would like to see the Steelers throw the ball down the field a little more this season.

 

Gainwell played well for the Steelers. Fun player. You can find someone to do what Gainwell did almost every off-season.

Doesn't mean the Steelers WILL correctly identify that player....but lets not make it out that Gainwell is some NFL unicorn.

 

This is what I thought would happen.

There's always someone that's willing to over pay.

I wouldn't be super-upset about this though.

I like Gainwell, but he's almost certainly never going to have the usage he had last year again. He was the de-facto WR2 on the team last year (WR1 when DK was hurt). He had 85 targets on 517 snaps. I don't know how that compares historically to RBs on teams with real-life NFL offenses, but my guess is that it's a crazy high %age of snaps targeted for a RB with that many snaps.

My guess is that Gainwell has a not-quite-so-extreme version of what happened to Jonnu Smith from 2024-2025. Insane numbers in 2024 because of fluky usage. Then cratered. I don't expect Gainwell to crater if he stays healthy. But I do expect him to revert to the mean.

 

I think we wanted to keep him.

But only wanted to pay him for the role he'll have next season. Not the insane role he had last season.

 

And Gainwell is next season's J Smith (but won't be historically bad like Smith was).

Gainwell's numbers in 2025 are going to be career highs because his usage was crazy. Especially re: receptions.

 

Steelers just lost their best weapon and Pierre, this is going really well.

 

I really don't know what Khan is thinking. He sits on his hands all day. He lost Gainwell, Pierre, and failed to get Malik Willis at a very reasonable price. Honestly Khan needs to go. We need someone much more aggressive.

 

Gainwell is a tough loss... normally I would Omar as:
B for Pittman
F of Gainwell

But Gainwell got his contract, so there's points in not overpaying....
So
B for Pittman
C for Gainwell

He can compliment those deals.

 

That was my thought as well. Part of me wonders if he is another Matt Flynn, who got big money from the Seahawks after one or two great starts with the Packers. Flynn was the guy Russell Wilson beat out as a rookie.

The number seems low, which is a little frustrating given the Steelers' need at quarterback.

 

This seems to have been the case with Najee.

Who didn't run at his proday either.

My guess is that a lot of guys who don't run at the combine will run at their prodays.

They generally get friendlier times at prodays.

And it gives them a chance to optimize for different things on different days.

Times are the combine are always kind of BS anyway. How many guys there are running at their playing weight? And no one runs in pads.

There's an interesting book about optimization called the 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. One of the chapters is on him training for combine events. And how he dramatically improved all his numbers in a weekend with just a few little tweaks (i.e. didn't actually get faster / more explosive, but there are ways to game the tests).

 

I honestly don't get the hype around Willis.

He's had 6 starts in the NFL.

Very little chance that he works out IMO.

Glad that we weren't the team to take this bet.

 

The shine has come off Khan for me, this is a prove it year and so far not so good, I do accept he is handicapped by having a deluded fool for an owner though, so theres that.

 

I guess you missed the Pittman deal?

They also re-signed Samuel, who will be an option to start opposite Porter.

 

Too bad for the Ratbirds they lose their center