NFL Player News

As far as looking the part goes, Jackson is a stud. At 6-foot-2 and 208-pounds, Jackson has the length and bulk to be able to keep up with some of the league’s bigger and tougher wide receivers. However, Zierlein notes Jackson’s “instincts and overall awareness are a concern.” Additionally, Jackson is not the fastest CB (he ran a 4.58 second 40-yard dash) and has a tendency to get grabby as soon as he starts to get beat. Jackson will need to find ways to slow down WRs early in the play in order to earn himself regular snaps in the NFL.

“To be clear, Rams coach Sean McVay finally has to commit to a significant increase in 12 personnel for Ferguson, a rookie second-round pick, to truly emerge this season. But the offense has trended that way at times, especially last season,” Rodrigue adds. It would be surprising for Ferguson to emerge immediately, but perhaps the Rams are getting ready to zig their offense in a new direction in 2025. The rookie tight end is lightly-drafted and best-approached as a dynasty asset, but it should at least be on the radar that he produces sooner than expected.

He will make $30.1 million per season, eclipsing the $30 million per season that Derek Stingley Jr. signed earlier this offseason by a mere $100,000 per year. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that Gardner is due $85.653 million in guarantees and that this extension will tie him to the Jets for the next six seasons. Gardner had a down 2024 after posting coverage grades of 90.8 and 90.0 in his first two years, but is generally expected to bounce back in HC Aaron Glenn’s more aggressive, man-focused system in 2025. This concludes major extensions for the Jets and they’ve done exceedingly rational things under Glenn and GM Darren Mougey.

Person notes “the arrival of No. 8 pick Tetairoa McMillan should take some pressure off Legette.” Legette’s eight drops in his rookie season were dispiriting, but the second-year receiver should hold a major role in Carolina’s passing game again in 2025 and he struggled to stay healthy last year. Legette makes for a good WR4/WR5 stab as someone with an ostensible path to a lot of playing time, even if on paper he would seem to be behind McMillan and Adam Thielen in the target pecking order.

Gibbs had an incredible season as a receiver in 2024, with a 74.8 PFF grade and 11.2 YAC per reception. He split out wide on 39 snaps in 2024 and 45 more in 2023. This shouldn’t cause a major reckoning of Gibbs’ fantasy value — we already know he’s great and that the Lions want to put the ball in his hands — but it could be a nice boon for PPR formats if Gibbs was more involved in the passing game.

Loveland did decline to say definitively that he’ll be out on the field when training camp begins, but there’s no real reason to be worried about his shoulder as we enter August. Loveland will likely face snap challenges in his rookie year with Cole Kmet retaining a real role in Chicago’s offense. Still, it’s undeniable that the rookie has major upside at a tough position for fantasy production.

Wilson becoming the Joe Flacco of the late 2020s sounds fun, but he’ll need to play better than he did in the last two seasons to make it happen. “Just believe. Why not?” Wilson told Sports Illustrated’s Connor Orr. Wilson’s first step in making it five more seasons is putting up a productive enough debut season with the Giants for Jaxson Dart’s debut to be pushed off into December or January.

The deal makes Smith, who had a deadline of 4 PM ET to agree to an extension ahead of the deadline for franchise-tagged players, the highest-paid guard in NFL history. Last season Smith finished with a PFF grade of 78.8 and a run blocking grade of 80.8 — the seventh-highest grade of any qualifying guard in the league. It’s an essential move as Smith has replaced Joe Thuney as the main cog at guard next to Creed Humphrey for the Chiefs. The guaranteed money tops Robert Hunt’s $63 million as the most for a guard as well.

A Jackson contract extension has been on the offseason backburner since March and will likely be a training camp story. Jackson’s cap figure spikes to $74.5 million in 2026. Zrebiec describes Jackson as gaining “more leverage in the contract talks with each passing month” should this drag on. We’re not expecting this to balloon into a major problem for the Ravens, but the negotiations with Jackson could hold up extension talks for players like Kyle Hamilton, Isaiah Likely, and Tyler Linderbaum.

He’s battling with UDFA John Hoyland in training camp. Loop’s performance in OTAs and mandatory minicamp is described by Zrebiec as “shaky,” so this isn’t a fully settled situation just yet. It’s possible this comes down to performance in preseason games.

Judkins, who was arrested for domestic battery last weekend, has not been formally punished by the NFL yet despite reportedly leaving a victim with “clearly evident” bruising on her chin and lip area in the incident. Florio speculates that Judkins could be punished after he signs his rookie contract, at which point the NFL could activate a paid-leave clause as he prepares to report. There’s been no movement between the Browns and Judkins as teams try to not meet the fully-guaranteed standard set by the Texans and Cleveland at the top of the second round for Jayden Higgins and Carson Schwesinger. If Judkins does miss a majority of training camp, it would be very difficult for the Browns to trust him right away and be a major boon for the fantasy prospects of Jerome Ford and Dylan Sampson.