Last week, new Ravens offensive coordinator Declan Doyle sent a message to the team’s players (and specifically to quarterback Lamar Jackson) regarding attendance at voluntary offseason workouts. On Wednesday’s Chris Simms Unbuttoned, head coach Jesse Minter was asked about the voluntary nature of the sessions and the importance of volunteering to participate.
“First of all, I do have total respect for the rules that it is voluntary,” Minter said. “Totally understand that. And Lamar has had unbelievable success doing it both ways. And so there’s certainly a balance there. But I think it’s our job to create an environment and a learning opportunity where they feel like it’s really important to them to want to be there.”
Basically, the players need to think they’re missing something useful if they don’t show up.
“Just like they’re like, ‘Man, this is high-level stuff. And this stuff’s going to help us,’” Minter said. “I think, like, the feeling of what we’re doing now will pay off in September and October and November versus, ‘OK, we’re coming in and we’re kind of doing the same routine.’ It just needs to be an environment that they really feel the importance of it.”
As the Ravens install a new offense, it’s obviously important for the players to be there. In 2024 and 2025, Jackson didn’t believe it was important enough to attend sufficient offseason workouts to unlock an annual bonus of $750,000. Whether that changes for 2026 remains to be seen.
Ravens Clips
The Week 14 Ravens-Steelers game featured multiple mistakes by the officials. At the time, the NFL admitted one. Today, the league admitted another.
The third was apparently admitted, until it wasn’t.
For starters, the league admitted after the game that an unnecessary roughness penalty called on defensive tackle Travis Jones was not a foul. On Tuesday, the NFL confirmed to PFT that the decision to use replay review to reverse a Ravens interception by linebacker Teddye Buchanan into a catch by Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was an error.
Along the way, the league did — then didn’t — say that the controversial touchdown catch by Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely was incorrectly overturned to an incompletion. The NFL’s official position continues to be that the decision was accurate. (We still believe it was a catch, with the replay process focusing on whether Likely took a third step and ignoring the other ways to complete the process.)
Multiple Ravens players have noticed today’s developments. Said quarterback Lamar Jackson on Twitter, “So technically we won? 10-7. 1st offseason win ever.”
Ravens linebacker Kyle Van Noy had more to add.
“Have we ever seen the NFL come out months after a game has been played (a couple weeks after the entire nfl season finished) and admitted they didn’t get 1 huge crucial call in the biggest NFL rivalry game,” Van Noy tweeted. “But they got 2 Crucial calls in same Game wrong!!! So the total was 3 horrible calls in 1 game…. That’s insane! 1. INT Rodgers , 2. Likely touchdown , and 3. Travis Jones 15 yarder on field goal (they came out with this Tuesday after the game saying they got it wrong). Wow !!!! Accountability kinda sorta not really but something kinda… We need some sort of action now because this can not happen at the highest level. I understand 1 but 3????? Smh.”
SMH indeed. The mistakes directly impacted the outcome of a key AFC North game, and may have directly impacted the division championship, with the Steelers and not the Ravens advancing to the postseason.
One of the hot topics on Tuesday at the Scouting Combine was the future of Eagles receiver A.J. Brown. And while the Eagles are saying all the right things regarding Brown’s future in Philly, odds as to his next team have emerged.
At DraftKings, the current favorites are the Eagles, at -130.
Next on the list is the Patriots, at +275. The Chargers land at +750, with the Bills at +900.
A return to the Titans is a +1000 bet. The Raiders are +1400, with the 49ers, Dolphins, and Ravens at +1600.
Eagles G.M. Howie Roseman made it clear that they’ll listen to any team that makes any offers about Brown or any other player. The question is whether another team will make the Eagles an offer they won’t refuse.
Ravens defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike injured his neck in Week 2 and has not played since. He may never play again.
His future remains in question five months after his injury.
“I love Nnamdi, but I have no updates at this time,” General Manager Eric DeCosta said Tuesday.
The Ravens have been hesitant to discuss Madubuike since his injury, with John Harbaugh and DeCosta sidestepping questions during the season. Now, it’s new coach Jesse Minter and DeCosta declining to go into detail with carefully worded answers.
Minter said he has talked to Madubuike since taking the job.
“I think that’ll be up to him when the time’s right,” Minter said. “I know he’s in great spirits, and it was great to see him in the building last week or the week prior. We’ll keep the rest of that private.”
Madubuike, a two-time Pro Bowler, has two years remaining on a four-year, $98 million extension. His 2026 base salary of $22 million is fully guaranteed, and he has a salary cap hit of $31 million.
DeCosta said the uncertainty of Madubuike’s situation won’t affect their offseason plans.
“It doesn’t affect me very much,” DeCosta said. “I think if we have the chance to draft a great defensive tackle, of course we will. It is one of the most important positions in football.
“Salary cap-wise, it doesn’t have any major impact on us at this time. There are a lot of unknowns when you build a team, and sometimes — I learned from [executive vice president] Ozzie [Newsome] – sometimes the best thing to do is just wait for more information, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
Ravens General Manager Eric DeCosta said recently that the team had some work to do when it comes to re-signing center Tyler Linderbaum ahead of free agency and he revealed one of the steps they’ve taken during a Tuesday press conference in Indianapolis.
Linderbaum, who is No. 3 on PFT’s list of the top free agents, is set for free agency after the Ravens passed on exercising their fifth-year option on his rookie deal. That decision was tied to the $23.4 million salary that would come with that option as it would be well above the $18 million average annual salary that currently tops the market for centers.
That salary disparity would also be in play for the franchise tag, but DeCosta said on Tuesday that the Ravens are willing to make Linderbaum the highest-paid center in the league. He told reporters that the team has offered Linderbaum a “market-setting” deal as they try to hold onto the three-time Pro Bowler.
The question for Linderbaum is whether another team will offer him an even bigger contract to switch teams ahead of the 2026 season.
One of the strangest plays of the 2025 NFL season was called correctly on the field, only to be overturned by replay review.
In the Week 14 Ravens-Steelers game, Aaron Rodgers threw a pass that was batted back to him, and Rodgers grabbed the ball, as did Ravens linebacker Teddye Buchanan. They wrestled for it as Rodgers went to the ground, Buchanan ended up with it, and the officials on the field ruled it an interception. Then a replay review ruled that Rodgers had possession of the ball with a knee down, and Rodgers caught the pass.
That replay review was incorrect. A league spokesman confirmed to PFT that when NFL Executive VP of Football Operations Troy Vincent said there were replay reviews the league wishes it could have back, that ruling of a Rodgers catch was one of them. It should have been an interception.
That play was a big moment in the fourth quarter of a big win for the Steelers, as it allowed the Steelers to run another minute off the clock and resulted in a 50-yard field position swing between where the Ravens would have had the ball if the interception had stood, and where the Ravens got the ball after the Steelers punted. Considering that the Ravens ended up narrowly losing, and ultimately losing the AFC North because of that loss, it’s a huge disappointment to Ravens fans that the replay review process overturned the correct call on the field.
Now that the league office has had time to carefully scrutinize the play, PFT is told that the Rodgers play should have been ruled the same way as the Bills’ interception in overtime of their playoff loss to the Broncos. On that play, Bills receiver Brandin Cooks did have the ball as he went to the ground, but he did not complete the process of the catch by maintaining possession on the ground. Denver’s Ja’Quan McMillian snatched the ball away from Cooks and secured the interception, just as Buchanan snatched the ball away from Rodgers and secured the interception.
On McMillian’s interception, the ruling on the field stood. It should have stood on Buchanan’s interception as well.
The Ravens want to sign Lamar Jackson to a new contract. That was already known, with owner Steve Bisciotti saying last month the team wanted to get an extension worked out before free agency.
On Tuesday at the Scouting Combine, General Manager Eric DeCosta wouldn’t say where things stand in talks, but he did make clear he expects a deal at some point.
“Lamar and I have an agreement: We handle business kind of in-house internally, as you all know,” DeCosta said. “That worked well for us the last time, and we will continue to have that policy moving forward. I have spoken to Lamar about a lot of different things over the last month. He’s been very engaged. He was big value to us in the coaching search, but we’ll continue those conversations moving forward.”
DeCosta, though, did allow that he is confident in signing Jackson to an extension.
“I am. I am. I definitely am,” DeCosta said.
Jackson will count $74.5 million against the salary cap in 2026 and 2027, so a new agreement would lower his cap number for this season. DeCosta, though, said that the start of free agency on March 11 is not a deadline. (A restructure would create $38 million in space.)
“I think we never have as much cap room as we would like to have, but we feel like we can start at the beginning of the new league year and conduct business,” DeCosta said.
Jackson has a new coach, having sat in on the interviews with Jesse Minter and others. The quarterback also was in on the interviews for a new offensive coordinator, which turned out to be Declan Doyle.
At his introductory news conference last week, Doyle made clear he expects players to participate in the voluntary offseason work. Jackson has forfeited $1.5 million by not participating in the minimum number of voluntary practices the past two offseasons.
He may or may not attend this offseason.
DeCosta doesn’t seem to care either way.
“You know what, those are voluntary,” DeCosta said. " Lamar is a two-time MVP. I think he knows what it takes to get ready for the grind of the NFL season, and he’s proven he can do it at a very, very high level, and I have no preference.”
One of the biggest calls of this NFL season came in the Week 14 Ravens-Steelers game, when Baltimore’s Isaiah Likely scored what appeared to be a go-ahead touchdown with 2:47 remaining in the fourth quarter, only to have the on-field officials’ ruling overturned by replay. Now NFL Executive VP of Football Operations Troy Vincent is suggesting the on-field officials were right, and the replay reversal was wrong.
Vincent told Mark Maske that the Likely play was among a handful of replay rulings that the league office has had second thoughts about.
“There was two plays in particular,” Vincent said. “There was the Likely play . . . Ravens-Steelers in the end zone. And then you had the one—there was a Jets play. But it was the Likely play that you go, that was interesting because of the third step and they were talking about the ball extended out. So it was: What constitutes that third act?”
It doesn’t engender a lot of confidence in the league’s officiating when league executives are still not clear on what constitutes a third act necessary to completing a catch. And Vincent’s statement doesn’t conclusively say that the replay overturn was wrong. But it sounds like the league now thinks the ruling on the field of a Ravens touchdown should have stood.
If the touchdown had counted, the Ravens probably would have won that game. Change the result of that game, and the Ravens win the AFC North, as they would have finished tied with the Steelers in the standings and would have won the tiebreaker based on a better division record. If the Ravens had won the AFC North, John Harbaugh might still be their coach. Someone else would be coaching the Giants. A whole lot would be different.
Vincent acknowledged that there were some replay reviews he is second-guessing, and he said most of those came in the early Sunday afternoon window when there are several games going on at once and the league’s replay office is slammed.
“When you watch, there was about five plays,” Vincent said. “Of the 171 plays that we called on replay or replay assist that came back to the booth, there were five that we said if we had to do it again, on just the replay assist, in general. Of that 171 that occurred during [the] regular season, there were five after we kind of took a step back and breathed-four of them [were] in the 1 o’clock window. Just volume and you go, ‘Ah, if we had to do that one again, just looking at it.’ ”
The idea that NFL officiating is going to be worse in the 1 o’clock window because the league officiating office has too many games to follow at once should not be acceptable to anyone. The league needs to make sure its officiating office is fully staffed at all times, with competent officials who can make the right call. Every time.
UPDATE 8:39 a.m. ET: An NFL spokesman clarified with PFT that while the Likely play was discussed in detail, it was not one of the handful that Vincent was referring to that the league would like to have back.
UPDATE: 11:34 a.m. ET: The NFL has confirmed that Vincent did acknowledge another play in that Steelers-Ravens game, an interception thrown by Aaron Rodgers, was ruled correctly on the field and should not have been overturned on replay.
The following are PFT’s top 100 free agents for the start of the 2026 league year. The rankings include prospective unrestricted free agents and released players. The list will be updated as events warrant, with signings, tags and re-signings denoted when announced and/or reported. Players released after initial publication may be added and all 100 players initially on the list will still be listed after any additions.
1. Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens.
2. Colts quarterback Daniel Jones.
3. Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum.
4. Jaguars linebacker Devin Lloyd.
5. Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson.
6. Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts.
7. Colts wide receiver Alec Pierce.
8. Chiefs cornerback Jaylen Watson.
9. Jets running back Breece Hall.
10. Packers quarterback Malik Willis.
11. Bucs cornerback Jamel Dean.
12. Seahawks WR/KR/PR Rashid Shaheed.
13. Packers offensive tackle Rasheed Walker.
14. Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker.
15. Colts offensive tackle Braden Smith.
16. Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean.
17. Seahawks edge rusher Boye Mafe.
18. Packers linebacker Quay Walker.
19. Chiefs linebacker Leo Chenal.
20. Bucs wide receiver Mike Evans.
21. Seahawks defensive back Coby Bryant.
22. 49ers wide receiver Jauan Jennings.
23. Packers wide receiver Romeo Doubs.
24. Jaguars running back Travis Etienne.
25. Broncos edge rusher John Franklin-Myers.
26. Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
27. Eagles edge rusher Jaelen Phillips.
28. Commanders wide receiver Deebo Samuel.
29. Bills center Connor McGovern.
30. Jets guard Alijah Vera-Tucker.
31. Seahawks cornerback Riq Woolen.
32. Chiefs safety Bryan Cook.
33. Bears cornerback Nahshon Wright.
34. Bills edge rusher Joey Bosa.
35. Dolphins edge rusher Bradley Chubb.
36. Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely.
37. Chargers edge rusher Odafe Oweh.
38. Steelers offensive guard Isaac Seumalo.
39. Lions defensive tackle D.J. Reader.
40. Browns linebacker Devin Bush.
41. Bears safety Jaquan Brisker.
42. Rams safety Kamren Curl.
43. Bills offensive guard David Edwards.
44. Patriots edge rusher K’Lavon Chaisson.
45. Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
46. Saints cornerback Alontae Taylor.
47. Chargers offensive guard Zion Johnson.
48. Browns offensive guard Joel Bitonio.
49. Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert.
50. Lions linebacker Alex Anzalone.
51. Panthers center Cade Mays.
52. Chargers edge rusher Khalil Mack.
53. Bears safety Kevin Byard.
54. Colts edge rusher Kwity Paye.
55. Falcons linebacker Kaden Elliss.
56. Ravens edge rusher Dre’Mont Jones.
57. Browns offensive guard Wyatt Teller.
58. Lions edge rusher Al-Quadin Muhammad.
59. Commanders linebacker Bobby Wagner.
60. Giants wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson.
61. Patriots safety Jaylinn Hawkins.
62. Cowboys edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney.
63. Saints linebacker Demario Davis.
64. Panthers running back Rico Dowdle.
65. Falcons edge rusher Arnold Ebiketie.
66. Titans offensive guard Kevin Zeitler.
67. Broncos running back J.K. Dobbins.
68. Cardinals safety Jalen Thompson.
69. Buccaneers tight end Cade Otton.
70. Saints edge rusher Cameron Jordan.
71. Seahawks cornerback Josh Jobe.
72. Giants offensive tackle Jermaine Eluemunor.
73. Texans wide receiver Christian Kirk.
74. Browns tight end David Njoku.
75. Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
76. Giants offensive guard Greg Van Roten.
77. Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota.
78. Jaguars cornerback Montaric Brown.
79. Falcons defensive tackle David Onyemata.
80. Bucs linebacker Lavonte David.
81. Bengals guard Dalton Risner.
82. Vikings safety Harrison Smith.
83. Giants quarterback Russell Wilson.
84. Ravens wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins.
85. Jets safety Andre Cisco.
86. Buccaneers running back Rachaad White.
87. Packers edge rusher Kingsley Enagbare.
88. Chargers wide receiver Keenan Allen.
89. Dolphins cornerback Rasul Douglas.
90. Texans defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins.
91. Titans tight end Chig Okonwko.
92. Eagles safety Reed Blankenship.
93. Raiders offensive guard Dylan Parham.
94. Browns safety Rayshawn Jenkins.
95. Broncos linebacker Alex Singleton.
96. Broncos outside linebacker Justin Strnad.
97. Bengals quarterback Joe Flacco.
98. Colts cornerback Mike Hilton.
99. Bills defensive tackle DaQuan Jones.
100. Falcons running back Tyler Allgeier.
Tight end Isaiah Likely’s hopes for a breakout 2025 season with the Ravens were hindered by a preseason foot injury, but he hasn’t lost sight of that goal as he gets closer to becoming a free agent for the first time in the NFL.
Likely told Jon Gruden on Gruden Goes Long that he didn’t feel like himself until around Thanksgiving because of the foot issue that caused him to miss the first three games of the season. He finished the year with 27 catches and he said that his message for his agent was that he wants to sign his next contract with a team that allows him to move to the next level.
“With my agent, what I told him was I just want to be able to blossom,” Likely said. “The last couple years, I’ve had a great vet in Mark Andrews, where he taught me everything to be a star-caliber tight end to the point where it’s like now I just want to be on a team where I can get out there and help a quarterback, help a team be able to put as much points on the board as possible. So just giving that information to my agent and letting him go to the teams and be an agent.”
Likely isn’t ruling out a return to Baltimore and said he considers it home before adding that “business is business” when it comes to a team that recently signed Andrews and wide receiver Rashod Bateman to new deals. They also have wide receiver Zay Flowers due for his first extension and quarterback Lamar Jackson set for another one, so there may be too many mouths to feed for the Ravens to clear out enough space for Likely.
