{"id":632289,"date":"2026-03-04T19:39:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T19:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/632289\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T19:39:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T19:39:16","slug":"ten-nfl-free-agents-who-could-land-surprisingly-big-contracts-during-2026-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/632289\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten NFL free agents who could land surprisingly big contracts during 2026 offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tight end market is full of big names like Travis Kelce<\/a>, David Njoku<\/a> and Dallas Goedert<\/a>, while 25-year-old Isaiah Likely<\/a> offers enticing potential. But with Kyle Pitts<\/a> off the market via franchise tag<\/a>, Okonkwo or Otton could end up being the top-paid TE in this free-agent cycle. Over the past two seasons, Otton led the Bucs with 118 receptions and ranked second behind Mike Evans<\/a> with 1,172 receiving yards; his three games of 80-plus receiving yards in 2025 tied for second-most among tight ends, behind only Trey McBride<\/a> (four). Okonkwo led the Titans with career highs of 56 catches and 560 yards last season. Either, if not both, could end up signing contracts worth around $12 million per year. Meanwhile, Kolar played in all 17 games last season and posted a 77.5 PFF grade (eighth among tight ends who played double-digit games) despite catching just 10 passes. When he does get the ball, he’s efficient — his 13.6 yards per catch ranks second among NFL tight ends since 2022 (minimum 25 receptions). He might end up becoming the league’s highest-paid blocking tight end, and it’s not out of the question he could get $10 million a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tight end market is full of big names like Travis Kelce, David Njoku and Dallas Goedert, while…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":632290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[94569,43869,529,146171,233863,29302,269689,221057,41304,10004,51,269687,50,530,269688,52],"class_list":["post-632289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-alec-pierce","tag-alontae-taylor","tag-analysis","tag-bryan-cook","tag-cade-otton","tag-charlie-kolar","tag-chig-okonkwo","tag-david-edwards","tag-ed-ingram","tag-free-agency","tag-headlines","tag-john-franklin-myers","tag-news","tag-no-minute","tag-rasheed-walker","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116172604456744406","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}