Tight end Tyler Conklin has agreed to a one-year deal with the Chargers, his agent, Mike McCartney, announced on social media.
Conklin took a free agent visit to Los Angeles this week.
He joins Will Dissly, Tucker Fisk and McCallan Castles in the tight ends room.
Conklin, 29, spent the past three seasons with the Jets.
In 2024, he played 16 games with 15 starts, seeing action on 805 offensive snaps. He made 51 catches for 449 yards and four touchdowns.
The Vikings made him a fifth-round pick in 2018, and he spent four seasons in Minnesota. He signed a three-year, $21 million deal with the Jets in free agency in 2022.
In his seven-year career, Conklin has 263 catches for 2,544 yards and 11 touchdowns. He has missed only three games, appearing in 114 with 64 starts.
With the news that Quarterback is coming back this year (due in part to the fact that Receiver fell flat), Michael Holley and I spent time on Friday’s PFT Live looking at the NFL figures we’d most like to see on a reality show.
The picks are in the attached video. Holley led things off with Deion Sanders, who isn’t technically an NFL figure but as a practical matter is. And Deion is entertaining and compelling.
My first pick was a guy who wouldn’t be obvious but who would be a superstar: Bills receiver Keon Coleman.
Coleman is naturally engaging and hilarious. He’s authentic. He’s real. He’s effortlessly funny.
Check out the clip for the other picks. And get ready to learn plenty in July about Joe Burrow, Jared Goff, and Kirk Cousins (again) on the Quarterback series.
One last point, while we have your attention. (If we do.) You can now watch PFT Live on NBC Sports Now. It’s two simple clicks to get to the content. Click here, then click “watch live.”
The Chargers are hosting veteran tight end Tyler Conklin on a free agent visit, Mike Garafolo of NFL Media reports.
The Chargers currently have Will Dissly, Tucker Fisk and McCallan Castles on their depth chart at the position.
Conklin, 29, spent the past three seasons with the Jets.
In 2024, he played 16 games with 15 starts, seeing action on 805 offensive snaps. He made 51 catches for 449 yards and four touchdowns.
The Vikings made him a fifth-round pick in 2018, and he spent four seasons in Minnesota.
He signed a three-year, $21 million deal with the Jets in free agency in 2022.
In his seven-year career, Conklin has 263 catches for 2,544 yards and 11 touchdowns. He has missed only three games, appearing in 114 with 64 starts.
The Steelers had Ben Roethlisberger entering his final NFL season when they drafted Najee Harris in the first-round of the 2021draft. After that season, the Steelers started five different quarterbacks the next three seasons.
Kenny Pickett started most of the games at quarterback for the Steelers as a rookie in 2022 and in 2023. The Steelers brought in veterans Russell Wilson and Justin Fields in 2024 and now are seeking a starter for their offense for 2025.
The Steelers also had three different offensive coordinators in Harris’ time there.
Now that Harris has left to sign with the Chargers in free agency, he looks back on his time with the team as a challenge after Roethlisberger retired. That despite four 1,000-yard rushing seasons for Harris, a 38-29-1 record and three postseason appearances in four seasons.
“It was just a team where we lost Ben. We lost a lot of O-line,” Harris told KCAL, via video from Matthew Luciow. “We just didn’t know anything on offense, really. We didn’t have any identity. We had a young guy coming in at quarterback. I was young. The team was young. I really didn’t have nobody to almost learn from on the offensive side. I think the veteran guy on that team was like a two-, three-year vet. He’s still learning himself.
“I’m coming in, and I’m just trying to look for people to pick their brain, and it was just defensive guys. I’d go to the defensive guys and talk to them, but there wouldn’t be too much they could tell me about an offensive thing. Through my years, I learned a lot that I only learned firsthand. I feel like here we’ve got a lot of veterans [with the Chargers] I can learn even more stuff from, even at the quarterback position and the O-line position.”
Harris summed up his time in Pittsburgh as “it was interesting years there, I’ll just say that. Interesting years.”
He declined to go into more detail.
The Steelers play the Chargers at SoFi Stadium in 2025.
The Chargers signed free agent center Andre James, the team announced Tuesday.
The Raiders released James last week.
James signed a three-year, $24 million deal with the Raiders before free agency started last year. The team cut him in a cost-cutting move.
James joined the Raiders in 2019 in the team’s final season in Oakland. In six seasons, he played 89 games with 60 starts. James has seven career penalties, including only three holding infractions.
He returns to Los Angeles, where he played his college ball at UCLA.
The Commanders are signing offensive tackle Foster Sarell to one-year deal, the team announced.
Sarell, 26, played 11 games for the Chargers last season, seeing action on 40 offensive snaps and 47 on special teams.
Sarell went undrafted in 2021 and signed with the Ravens. He made the team’s practice squad for five days before the Ravens cut him, and he landed on the Giants’ practice squad for seven days.
Sarell caught on with the Chargers, though he didn’t appear in a game in 2021.
He made three starts in 2022, his only three career starts, and he appeared in every game as a reserve in 2023.
In his career, Sarell has played 338 offensive snaps and 129 on special teams.
After four years with the Jets, offensive lineman Mekhi Becton was viewed as a major disappointment: The 11th overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft, Becton missed more games than he played and never developed into the franchise left tackle the Jets wanted him to be.
Then last year Becton signed a one-year contract with the Eagles, moved to guard, and played well enough that last week the Chargers signed him to a two-year, $20 million contract. On his way out, Becton is thanking the Eagles for making him a better player.
“The standard we upheld and the way we showed up for each other every single day, that’s what made this past season the most fun I’ve ever had playing football, and it was all because of the guys in that locker room,” Becton wrote on social media. “To the offensive line, I couldn’t have asked for a better group of guys to go to battle with. Thank y’all for welcoming me in and for setting the standard for showing me what it truly means to prepare to fight through injuries, to push through the pain and to handle business at the highest level. I learned so much just from being around each of you.”
Becton singled out Eagles offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland as a man who has made a difference in his career.
“Coach Jeff Stoutland, thank you,” Becton wrote. “From Day One you believed in me, even before I fully believed in myself, you saw something in me, challenged me and pushed me to reach a level I never knew I had. You made me a better player but more importantly, a better man.”
The Eagles helped Becton grow into a better version of himself than the Jets ever saw, and he helped them win a Super Bowl. And the Chargers now stand to benefit.
A year after the Chargers cut him, wide receiver Mike Williams is back, and eager to show he’s the same player Chargers fans remember from his two 1,000-yard seasons with the franchise.
Williams did not look like the same player last year, when he played half the season with the Jets and half the season with the Steelers, and when he was asked at his introductory press conference if he thinks he has something to prove, Williams answered, “Well, yeah, I feel like it, because last year was terrible for me, for sure.”
Williams didn’t badmouth either of the two teams he played for last year and went out of his way to make clear he has no hard feelings toward Aaron Rodgers, who blamed him for a costly interception before he was traded to the Steelers. But he also detailed what a struggle the 2024 season was for him.
“I’m just being honest. It was terrible,” Williams said. “Probably the worst year I’ve had in the league by far. So, yeah, I’m just putting it in the past. That was the past. Trying to make it feel like it didn’t happen for me. But, yeah, just getting back to what I’m used to doing and having fun, that’s my main thing. This is where it all started and I’m excited to be back.”
Williams managed to play in 18 regular-season games last year — a rare feat that he accomplished because he was traded from the Jets to the Steelers before the Jets’ bye and after the Steelers’ bye — but he said the ACL rehab he was going through was difficult, because he was accustomed to the medical staff he had long known with the Chargers. He’s glad to be back with the Chargers now.
“Never wanted to leave, on my side, but it’s the business part of football, and things happen,” Williams said. “But now I’m back, and happy to be back.”
Late Friday night, the Chargers announced that veteran offensive lineman Mekhi Becton signed a contract with the team. Details were scarce.
On Saturday morning, NFL Media reported that it’s a two-year, $20 million deal.
It’s good, not great. It’s probably better than anyone would have expected him to get this year, after four seasons with the Jets that didn’t live up to his draft pedigree as the eleventh overall selection in 2020.
The full details aren’t yet known. It could be a one-year deal with an option on the second.
Regardless, Becton did enough in 2024 to get a solid (not spectacular) contract for 2025, and maybe for 2026.
Most of the top free agents signed early. As the first week of free agency ends, one of the top unsigned players has a new home.
The Chargers have announced that former Eagles guard Mekhi Becton has signed with L.A.
The eleventh overall pick in the 2020 draft, Becton’s time with the Jets was underwhelming — largely due to injury. He signed a one-year deal with the Eagles last year, after playing out his rookie contract. (The Jets didn’t pick up his fifth-year option.)
It’s reportedly a two-year deal. No other terms have been disclosed.
Becton started his career as a tackle. The Eagles moved him to right guard in 2024, and he quickly meshed with the best offensive line in the league.
