2026 Free Agent Thread

If you want to compare projected cash value in 2026 (more reasonable because it takes out the proration from the cap hit...probably still not great because it eliminates the cost/benefit of the multi-year term vs. the 1 year term).

• Metcalf: Only cash he's earn is his annual salary. That's $25mm this year. Next year, his salary will drop to $20MM, but he'll get a 6.5MM roster bonus, so his cash will increase by $1.5MM in 2027 relative to 2026. In 2025, Metcalf's cash value was his SB ($30MM) + 1st year salary ($5MM) = $35MM.
• Pickens: If he plays on the tag, his cash value will be $27.3MM. If he gets a long term deal, it will be his SB + his 1st year salary. Since it's a year later and he did better than Metcalf ever has, his cash value in year 1 of a long term deal will likely be (significantly) higher than Metcalf's was.

If Pickens went full Bell, he'd cost them nothing. But that's pretty stupid, espeically for a guy who hasn't had a big payday yet. I think he can sit out until week 10, sign the tag, then still get an accrued season. In this case, his cash value would be the prorated value of the tag amount for the rest of the season.

 

He's not a bad end of the roster guy.

 

I'm not comparing the full contracts. I'm comparing the cap hit and likely production for 2026.

 

I know.

My post was explaining why that's not a reasonable comparison because doing this doesn't count the cap benefit we got at the beginning of the contract (because signing bonuses get prorated).

Looking at the cap hit of one year in a long term deal in isolation misses the forest for the trees.

FWIW, I also used to make this mistake. But more with the big cap hits we'd see after restructuring guys. Like signing bonuses, restructures save cap space today at the expense of increasing cap hit later. It was silly of me to complain about the inflated cap hit in the later years without also acknowledging the benefits we got from the reduce cap hit when we did the restructure.

Tags don't get the pros or cons of long term deals. They are one year deals where the cash == cap hit. Comparing them to long term deals will lead to poor conclusions.

You're also assuming that GP is going to play under the tag. And it's not clear that's going to be the case.

 

According to this CBS article, 75% (12/16) of players who were tagged between 2023-2025 ended up signing a long term deal instead of playing under the tag.
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/franchise-transition-tags-nfl-free-agency-all-you-need-to-know/

This may not be the case with Pickens because the Cowboys seem to want to keep GP on a short leash and don't want to give him the leverage over a team (re: can't really cut early) that a player gets by signing a long term deal.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48561830/cowboys-say-talk-long-term-deal-george-pickens

Interestingly, the Cowboys (who aren't the Jets, but aren't a model franchise either), haven't extended a player on the tag since 2015. Not super surprising because the tag doesn't get used all that often. But they've had multiple players (Dak, Lawrence, Schultz, and Pollard) play seasons on the tag. So they're probably the outlier on the tag. Most teams use the tag so they get more time to negotiate a long term deal.

I think they got burned tagging Dak only to wait to give him a long term deal.

I am less familiar with the other examples here, but tagging Pollard was probably a good idea because signing RBs to long term deals is pretty risky. They let him go to TEN, where he had two pretty good seasons (played at basically the same level as his tag year, but not as good as his probowl year (the year before they tagged him).

 

I was responding to a report that he was signing on the tag, so it made sense to make that assumptiom in that context.

I understand your point, but I really don't care about the previous benefit for the purposes of this comparison. I'm comparing the value and expense of the two players for 2026 only. If Pickens plays on the tag, the Cowboys get the better player for less money. The same was true of this past season. If folks want to go on about his behavior, even though it was Metcalf who cost his team dearly with his immature stupidity, that's fine. In terms of cap hit and play on the field, the Steelers weakened themselves in 2025 and 2026 with that trade.

 

I've tried to say this more politely. I also tried to point out that I used to make the same mistake you're making.

The comparison you're making is silly. And perhaps disingenuous if you're making the comparison as an argument for why we should have kept Pickens.

I agree we should have kept Pickens (at least to the end of his rookie contract).

But this comparison doesn't tell anyone anything meaningful about the relative value of either player.

We've already talked about how there's still a good chance that Pickens doesn't play under the tag (although playing for Dallas seems to make it more likely that he'll play out the tag than if he was playing for another team).

But it's not just GP's cap number than can change.

It's actually much easier to change DK's number. Doesn't even require any negotiation from the team.

Maybe the best way to show you that your argument is silly is by pointing out that Metcalf is probably the best candidate for a contract restructure on the Steelers?

• Will your tune change if we drop Metcalf's salary this year to $2MM and convert the remainder to a signing bonus and allocate it across 5 years (by adding a void year to the contract)?
• I don't think it will. Or at least I think it shouldn't. Because whether or not we should have kept GP or traded for DK (keeping both for last season is what I wanted) isn't related to their cap hits this season at all. Because it's so easy for either of these numbers to change.
• Restructuring could pretty easily reduce DK's cap hit to under ~$13MM ($2MM salary + $6MM from prorated SB + $23MM/5 of the restructure = $12.6MM).
• But his cap hit in each of the following years of his contract (plus one dummy year) goes up by $23/5MM.

I don't have the math exactly correct for a max restructure because I didn't look up what his minimum salary would be (@hackjam is better at doing this than I am...but I think I'm at least directionally correct here).

But you can see from this estimate that it would be very easy for the Steelers to have Metcalf play at about half of the value of the tag Dallas put on GP.

Hopefully this shows you that the Steelers can easily (no negotiation required) throttle DK's cap hit this year to any number between ~$12.6MM and $31MM.

This is exactly why looking at any one year in isolation is silly. This is doubly true if we're using single year numbers before the season starts. Because those numbers could still change dramatically for both players by the time we get our first kickoff of 2026.

But no matter what his cap hit is this year, it doesn't change whether or not it was a good idea to sign DK (I think it was) or whether it was a good idea to trade Pickens (I think it wasn't).

 

You lost your credibiity when you started using a hypothetical restructure to try to justify your failed argument.

Pickens was a better player than Metcalf at a lower cap number last year. As things stand right now, he is on track to be a better player on a lower cap number for 2026. The rest is you throwing a lot of what might be instead of what is to try to justify your failed argument.

That was a whole lot of talk to basically say you agree with me that they should have kept Pickens, perhaps along with Metcalf. Funny how folks think I'm the one who argues just to argue. I love irony.

 

I think Pickens is just a better player than Metcalf period.

That has nothing to do with their cap numbers this year.

Have you ever admitted to being wrong about anything? It's kind of a super-power on the internet. Because when you do that, people realize that you're being honest and trying to learn something instead of just trying to win an argument against someone you'll never meet in real life.